Samuel Beckett: Stirrings Still (with music by Trevor Bača) JACK Quartet

• Trevor Bača (b. 1975): Stirrings Still:
• 1 Bača: Stirrings Still: I. 05:23
• 2 Bača: Stirrings Still: II. 04:21
• 3 Bača: Stirrings Still: III. 05:21
• 4 Bača: Stirrings Still: IV. 03:42
• 5 Bača: Stirrings Still: V. 03:35
• 6 Bača: Stirrings Still: VI. 04:21
• 7 Bača: Stirrings Still: VII. 03:23
• 8 Bača: Stirrings Still: VIII. 05:43
• 9 Bača: Stirrings Still: IX. 02:33
• 10 Bača: Stirrings Still: X. 01:19
• 11 Bača: Stirrings Still: XI. 04:13
• 12 Bača: Stirrings Still: XII. 02:37
• 13 Bača: Stirrings Still: XIII. 03:14
• 14 Bača: Stirrings Still: XIV. 03:07
• 15 Bača: Stirrings Still: XV. 04:21
• 16 Bača: Stirrings Still: XVI. 02:28
• 17 Bača: Stirrings Still: XVII. 01:59
• 18 Bača: Stirrings Still: XVIII. 02:42
• Total Runtime 01:04:22

Info for Samuel Beckett: Stirrings Still (with music by Trevor Bača)

Stirrings Still was Samuel Beckett’s last message in prose, completed in 1987, and first published the following year. More monologue than story, it comes from a narrator on the edge between life and what lies beyond, which might be a vast wheatfield seen in black-and-white, or might be a swirl of stumbling memories.

Beckett cherished music, in particular the songs and string quartets of Franz Schubert. His writing is musical, in its meticulous phrasing, its use of repetition, and often its form. Stirrings Still is an example: a composition of interweavings and developments.

The music, created for this release by composer Trevor Bača, is no accompaniment but rather a parallel stream, heard in alternation with the words, reflecting and contemplating what they have to say. Imagined for the musicianship of JACK Quartet, it is a stream into which the listener is drawn from time to time, not away from the words but more deeply into them, through another medium.

Trevor Bača was born in California in 1975 and grew up in Texas. His concerns as composer include “lost and secret texts, and the powers of musical storytelling.” Samuel Beckett’s protagonist, in the final section of Stirrings Still, hears something from deep within, a sentence with a word he cannot catch, and Bača’s writing for the string quartet conveys some of the intense yearning to grasp it.

Bača studied art, music, literature and languages at the University of Texas, composition and string techniques with Stefano Scodanibbio in Macerata, Italy, and composition with Julio Estrada in Mexico City. He holds a PhD in composition from Harvard University. His music has been played throughout the world, with recent performances in New York, Tokyo, Berlin and Barcelona. Bača's compositions have been anthologized as part of Notations 21, in which graphic and experimental manuscripts of a hundred international composers are displayed and contrasted, and his scores have also been exhibited as art at the Chelsea Gallery in New York City and the Hutchins Gallery on Long Island. In 2019 he joined the faculty of the Department of Music at Yale University, where he lectures on 20th- and 21st-century music.

JACK Quartet was formed in 2005, its name an acronym of the initials of the founding members. Violist John Pickford Richards and violinist Christopher Otto were there from the beginning, with violinist Austin Wulliman and cellist Jay Campbell joining the quartet in 2016. They have established a reputation for their commitment to challenging contemporary repertoire and experimental chamber music – from Elliott Carter to John Zorn, from John Luther Adams to George E. Lewis – and enjoyed close working relationships with many composers.

Paul Griffiths, born in 1947 in Bridgend, Wales, is a British music critic, novelist and librettist, best known for his prolific writings on modern music. He wrote the libretto for Elliott Carter’s only opera What Next?, recorded for ECM New Series in 2000, as well as the libretti for Tan Dun’s opera Marco Polo, and Hans Abrahamsen’s opera let me tell you. In 2003, ECM recorded his collaboration with cellist-composer-improviser Frances Marie Uitti, there is still time, subtitled "scenes for speaking voice and cello," which featured Griffiths as narrator of his own text.

The author of more than twenty books on music as well as novels, a collection of short stories, and numerous liner notes, Paul Griffiths has received many awards and prizes for his work, including an OBE for services to music, literature and composition.

Stirrings Still was recorded in 2023 and 2024 at Auditorio Stelio Molo RSI, Lugano, and produced by Manfred Eicher, who has long been fascinated by the inherent musicality of Samuel Beckett’s writing.

Paul Griffiths, narrator
JACK Quartet:
Christopher Otto, violin
Austin Wulliman, violin
John Pickford Richards, viola
Jay Campbell, violoncello

JACK Quartet
Deemed "superheroes of the new music world" (Boston Globe), the JACK Quartet is "the go-to quartet for contemporary music, tying impeccable musicianship to intellectual ferocity and a take-no-prisoners sense of commitment." (Washington Post) "They are a musical vehicle of choice to the next great composers who walk among us." (Toronto Star)

The recipient of Lincoln Center's Martin E. Segal Award, New Music USA's Trailblazer Award, and the CMA/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming, JACK has performed to critical acclaim at Carnegie Hall (USA), Lincoln Center (USA), Miller Theatre (USA), Wigmore Hall (United Kingdom), Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ (Netherlands), IRCAM (France), Kölner Philharmonie (Germany), the Lucerne Festival (Switzerland), La Biennale di Venezia (Italy), Suntory Hall (Japan), Bali Arts Festival (Indonesia), Festival Internacional Cervatino (Mexico), and Teatro Colón (Argentina).

Comprising violinists Christopher Otto and Austin Wulliman, violist John Pickford Richards, and cellist Jay Campbell, JACK is focused on new work, leading them to collaborate with composers John Luther Adams, Chaya Czernowin, Simon Steen-Andersen, Caroline Shaw, Helmut Lachenmann, Steve Reich, Matthias Pintscher, and John Zorn. Upcoming and recent premieres include works by Derek Bermel, Cenk Ergün, Roger Reynolds, Toby Twining, and Georg Friedrich Haas.

JACK operates as a nonprofit organization dedicated to the performance, commissioning, and spread of new string quartet music. Dedicated to education, the quartet spends two weeks each summer teaching at New Music on the Point, a contemporary chamber music festival in Vermont for young performers and composers. JACK has a long-standing relationships with the University of Iowa String Quartet Residency Program, where they teach and collaborate with students each fall, and the Boston University Center for New Music, where they visit each semester. Additionally, the quartet makes regular visits to schools including Columbia University, Harvard University, New York University, Princeton University, Stanford University, and the University of Washington.

John Luther Adams
This week celebrates the music of the Pulitzer Prize and GRAMMY-winning composer John Luther Adams, whose innovative works are the products of a uniquely American viewpoint, with emphasis on the natural world, the Alaskan wilderness, and the culture of the arctic Inuit people and other indigenous populations. Adams has composed for a wide range of settings including chamber ensembles, orchestra, film, television, voice, and electronics. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music in recognition of his orchestral piece Become Ocean, which was also awarded a GRAMMY for Best Contemporary Classical Composition. He received a second GRAMMY for his percussion piece Inuksuit. Adams served as Associated Professor of Composition at Oberlin Conservatory, was named a Rockefeller Fellow, and has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Foundation for Contemporary Arts. He was the recipient of the 2010 Nemmers Prize in Music Composition, cited by the selection committee for “melding the physical and musical worlds into a unique artistic vision that transcends stylistic boundaries.”

Booklet for Samuel Beckett: Stirrings Still (with music by Trevor Bača)