A musical dialogue among three unmistakable voices, Greetings and Salutations opens with Caroline Shaw’s Blueprint, whose title is drawn from a Japanese wood-block art typically using precious “Prussian Blue” ink. Shaw describes this piece, and chamber music itself, as a “conversation without words” Here, she converses with Diné-Navajo composer Juantio Becenti and 20th century great Benjamin Britten. For our third commission, Juantio Becenti is writing a quartet for Sheffield in which different musical styles will talk with one another; and Britten’s final major work, his 3rd Quartet, is his simultaneous greeting and farewell to the beauties and mysteries of life.

PROGRAM

Blueprint | Caroline Shaw (b. 1982)

World Premiere commissioned by Sheffield Chamber Players | Juantio Becenti (b. 1983)

String Quartet No. 3 | Benjamin Britten (1913—1976)