Signum Quartet, photo by Irene Zandel
(PRINCETON, NJ) -- The award-winning string ensemble Signum Quartet revisits its 2015 #quartweet Project with an interactive talk on Wednesday, April 30, 2025 at 7:00pm in the Community Room at the Princeton Public Library. Presented by the Princeton Symphony Orchestra in partnership with the Library, the talk will include an explanation of the social media-inspired #quartweet format followed by performances of the Quartet's best loved #quartweets by professional and student composers, as well as premieres of some new #quartweet compositions. The audience will have the opportunity to compose a group #quartweet and hear the music come to life.
Founded by the Signum Quartet, the #quartweet Project was launched at a residency hosted by the Princeton Symphony Orchestra in October 2015. Composers of all ages and experience levels submitted works for performance by the Signum Quartet containing not more than 140 notes – bite-sized works nicknamed #quartweets.
Notable composers including Caroline Shaw, Julian Grant, Derek Bermel, Steve Mackey, and Sarah Kirkland Snider created music for the project which premiered alongside pieces composed by local elementary school students. The #quartweets project provided an opportunity for anyone to creatively, and compactly, communicate and share their story through music.
Attendees of the talk will have the opportunity to enter a drawing for free tickets to see the Signum Quartet perform on the Princeton Symphony Orchestra’s Chamber Series at Trinity on May 1 at 7:00pm. Tickets and information for that concert is available at princetonsymphony.org.
Soundtracks is free and open to the public, and is presented as a PSO BRAVO! community outreach program in partnership with Princeton Public Library. The series is sponsored in the 2024-25 season by AffinIT.
Performances of unsparing expressivity, intimacy, and vitality are hallmarks of the Signum Quartet, pairing music of the subtlest order with playing of the highest intensity. The Quartet began their 2024-25 season with performances across Germany, Switzerland, and Spain. They also toured South Africa combining programs featuring select works by Haydn, Schumann, and Brahms with an original presentation highlighting current South African composers and musicians in honor of the 30th anniversary of the fall of apartheid. In 2021, the ensemble made its debut at Carnegie Hall in New York and at the Library of Congress in 2023.
This spring, they return to the United States as a featured guest artist at the Salt Lake City Chamber Music Society and Princeton Symphony Orchestra’s Chamber Series at Trinity. They will make their Chinese debut in Chengdu, Shanghai, and Shenzhen. The recent recording of their Schubert cycle, Lebensmuth, received an Opus Klassik Award in 2024.
The Princeton Symphony Orchestra (PSO) is a cultural centerpiece of the Princeton community and one of New Jersey’s finest music organizations, a position established through performances of beloved masterworks, innovative music by living composers, and an extensive network of educational programs offered to area students free of charge.
Led by Edward T. Cone Music Director Rossen Milanov, the PSO presents orchestral, pops, and chamber music programs of the highest artistic quality, supported by lectures and related events that supplement the concert experience. Through PSO BRAVO!, the orchestra produces wide-reaching and impactful education programs in partnership with local schools and arts organizations that culminate in students attending a live orchestral performance.
The only independent, professional orchestra to make its home in Princeton, the PSO performs at historic Richardson Auditorium on the campus of Princeton University.
The PSO receives considerable support from the Princeton community and the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, regularly garnering NJSCA’s highest honor. Recognition of engaging residencies and concerts has come from the National Endowment for the Arts, and the PSO’s commitment to new music has been acknowledged with an ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming and a Copland Fund Award.
