PRISM Quartet & Susie Ibarra

Composer and percussionist Susie Ibarra joins PRISM Quartet for a concert celebrating the XAS Records release of their most recent collaboration: Ibarra’s “Procession Along the Aciga Tree.” The program, curated by Ibarra, also includes new arrangements of works by Ibarra and Filipino composer José Maceda, and the premiere of “Spring in New York” by Indonesian composer Gardika Gigih.

In describing “Procession Along the Aciga Tree,” Ibarra writes, “Beautiful acacia trees are commonly seen throughout the forest areas of the northern Luzon in the Philippines. One of the largest acacia trees known in the province of Kalinga is the Aciga Tree which is said to be a tree of treasures. ‘Procession Along the Aciga Tree’ is inspired by the tradition of processional music in the north of the Philippines often found weaving through the forests. This piece draws upon interlocking rhythms, shifting melodies, pulses and cross rhythms. It imagines a sonic procession amidst the Acacia to the Aciga tree.”

Ibarra contributes new arrangements of selections from two previously composed works to the program: “Walking on Water” and “Fragility Etudes.” In “Walking on Water,” Ibarra took an underwater microphone to Himalayan hills to record the sound of glaciers breaking and melting, and uses that as the immersive backdrop to her composition, which is both an elegy to a planet in environmental crisis and an homage to human resilience in dire circumstances. “Fragility Etudes” are studies into a world of sound that reflect humanity’s interdependence and mutual existence alongside the natural environment. Ibarra’s dynamic score explores this interconnectedness through polyrhythms and concepts from the physics of glass.