Sinfonia Cymru’s chamber programme – given as part of this year’s Vale of Glamorgan festival – featured four composers, all women and all American. Caroline Shaw and Augusta Read Thomas are familiar names but, with those of Lera Auerbach and Gabriela Lena Frank pretty much unknown on this side of the Atlantic, this was a welcome introduction on the part of ensemble’s American cellist, Abby Lorimier, who curated the sequence.
Thousandth Orange, Shaw’s piano quartet which opened the evening, relates to the way artists painting still lives can convey the myriad inflections of light falling on a bowl of fruit. The piano’s four opening chords, calmly stated, are the basis for an exploration of the relationship between strings and keyboard, with different juxtapositions throwing up a variety of colours and, finally, the decaying of sounds.
