David Fulmer "String Quartet No. 3"

Violinist and composer David Fulmer was just named a winner of the 56th annual BMI Student Composer Awards, and was recently presented the prestigious Charles Ives Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters for his original compositions.

His String Quartet No. 3, affectionately dedicated to the Zukofsky quartet, was written for the 2009 American Composers Alliance Festival. "For a composer, the string quartet medium presents an extended registral spectrum, a diversified palate of timbres (through the uses of such techniques as pizzicato, sul ponticello, sul tasto, col legno, etc.), and a wonderful asymmetric balance of instruments."

This work is structured around sequences articulated by registers of varying lengths. The succession of these registers is continuously changing as a result of the transformations of pitch material together with the changing of instrumental groupings within the quartet (ie. solo, duo, trio). This sort of rapid succession of smaller and extended sections enables a spontaneous contour to unravel as the resultant formal design of the work. In the harmonic sense, this quartet aims at creating a texture of ever-changing chromatic saturations. Utilizing the full 24-tone chromatic gamut, the use of quartertones allows dense concentration of pitch material.

Fulmer_String_Quartet_3Excerpt.mp3

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