Woolrich’s new set of string quartets, A Book of Inventions, is a ‘jigsaw’ gradually being pieced together to reveal a whole. Following the premiere of Badinerie at MoMA, New York in July 2018 by the Ansonia Quartet, other movements will be heard in the UK from autumn 2018 across two seasons by a mix of young and established ensembles including the Benyounes, Tesla, Callino and Bozzini quartets with others to follow. Involving several festivals and venues across the country with specially-devised programmes – some curated by the composer – each performance will have a flavour of its own. There will also be talks, and workshop opportunities for student composers.
Full details can be found online at abookofinventions.com
‘A thoroughly captivating musical journey…’
nationalsawdust.org on Badinerie, July 2018, MoMA, New York
Débricollage is the latest addition… His title is borrowed from a kinetic sculpture by Yves Tinguely, in which an assemblage of everyday objects move around each other according to unrevealed rules. Woolrich’s piece also brings together unexpected, apparently unrelated ideas, and creates a narrative to bind them. Sudden brief unisons anchor the music and launch it in fresh directions, whether those are long-limbed melodic lines or clockwork pizzicatos. A fragile, teasing coherence gradually emerges.’
The Guardian (Andrew Clements), 15 March 2019