Seo / Argus Quartet / Whang - Respiri [CD]

Respiri (breathing) is Juri Seo's second album with innova after Mostly Piano. Focusing on string writing, the works explore themes of life, death, memory, and change. Seo represents a rare breed of contemporary classical music that lives at the edge of old and new. Seo freely navigates through colorful sonorities of string instruments that merge in and out of kaleidoscopic harmonies. Her intricate melodies blend in dense counterpoint. Argus' extraordinary versatility shines in every track. They effortlessly move between warm tones and noisy harmonics; they dissolve a tight canon into a hazy texture in a heartbeat. Listeners will experience the full range of human emotions and feelings, from agony to bliss. Juri Seo, a Guggenheim fellow and a Koussevitzky Commission recipient, is a composer and pianist based in New Jersey. She teaches music at Princeton University. The Argus Quartet is a first prize winner at the Concert Artists Guild Victor Elmaleh Competition, as well as the 2017 M-Prize Chamber Arts Competition, and has served as the Graduate Resident String Quartet at the Juilliard School and the Fellowship Quartet in Residence at the Yale School of Music.