Pulitzer Prize winner and other hot properties prove their worth in Melbourne.

Salon, Melbourne Recital Centre
November 25, 2014

The New York-based American Contemporary Music Ensemble (ACME) is dedicated to performing significant works from the 20th and 21st centuries, with an emphasis on American composers. There are over ten core members in the ensemble, four of whom were present for this Australian tour, in string quartet formation. ACME played works by four composers written between 2009 and 2013. All performances were Australian premieres and explored the sonic and artistic possibilities of the string quartet in exciting and beautiful ways.

Bryce Dessner (1976-) is best known as a guitarist with rock group The National, but he’s also an acclaimed composer whose St. Carolyn by the Sea was released earlier this year by Deutsche Grammophon. Little Blue Something was written in 2012 for the Kronos Quartet, and was inspired by two Czech musicians that the composer heard playing in a Copenhagen street. ACME delivered a haunting performance of this darkly intense, lilting and cyclic work, which included some beautiful dissonances and cello harmonics.

Harmonics are integral to The Wind in High Places (2011) by Alaskan-based composer John Luther Adams (1953-), winner of the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for music. This work is a...