For the chamber-music season, the Leonis Quartet performs tonight at 8.30 p.m. at the Auditorium, Viale de Coubertin 30, telephone 06 80241281. Founded in 2004 by four Lyon Conservatoire students, the quartet works in France with composers and new-music centres, often premiering commissions from leading contemporary composers.
Tonight it gives the world premiere of De la nature du sacre, the Third String Quartet by Milanese composer Jacopo Baboni Schilingi, a pupil of Brian Ferneyhough and Ivan Fedele. Written for string quartet and live computer, it uses sound-processing algorithms through which the composer reinterprets the instrumentalists’ sounds live, creating a dialogue between synthesised sounds, processed strings and purely acoustic sounds.
The programme continues with Different Trains by Steve Reich, a founding figure of American minimalism, and Ravel’s String Quartet, written at twenty-eight and dedicated to Gabriel Fauré.
Caption: tonight’s Leonis Quartet programme features Baboni Schilingi, Reich and Ravel.