Last summer Victoria Bond and the Cassatt String Quartet were awarded a Chamber Music America Classical Commissioning grant for the creation of a new string quartet. Bond's work is inspired by Georgia O’Keeffe’s painting Blue and Green Music and will premiere at the Seal Bay Music Festival in Maine in 2020. Complete details of the award are available at this link.

 

Ms. Bond describes her inspiration behind the work, "the painting is an abstract study in motion, color and form, with the interplay of those two colors that dance with each other in graceful, sensuous patterns. O’Keeffe was influenced by music and said, 'Since I cannot sing, I paint.' Her painting is filled with music and it was my task to discover what it evoked."

 

In addition to the premiere, the Cassatt String Quartet will be recording the work for a new CD which will also include Bond's Dreams of Flying. Inspired by John James Audubon's Birds of America, the piece is an exploration of the sensation of flying. Listen to a preview of the Cassatt's recording of Dreams of Flying - Mov't III "The Caged Bird Dreams of the Jungle".