At New York’s Alice Tully Hall on today’s date in 2003 the Avalon Quartet gave the first complete performance of a new four-movement string quartet entitled Sun Threads, by the American composer Augusta Read Thomas.

Each movement of the new work has its own evocative title and had been premiered previously as stand-alone pieces by a consortium of ensembles: the first movement, Eagle at Sunrise, by the Ying Quartet; the second, Invocations, by the Miami Quartet; the third, Fugitive Star, by the Avalon Quartet; and the fourth, Rise Chanting, by the Alexander Quartet.

As the poetic titles indicate, Thomas is not afraid of emotion in music, but insists on internal logic as well, and says:

“I believe my music must be passionate, involving risk and adventure, such that a given musical moment might seem like a surprise right when you hear it but, only a millisecond later, seems inevitable … One of my main artistic credos has been to examine small musical objects–a chord, a motive, a rhythm, a color–and explore them from every possible perspective. The different perspectives reveal new musical elements, which I then transform and which in turn become the musical development.”

Augusta Read Thomas (b. 1964) Eagle at Sunrise, from Sun Threads Walden Chamber Players ART CD 1992007