Mivos Quartet

The Mivos Quartet are the most compelling ambassadors new music could ask for. "This vital young New York string quartet embraces toothy modernism with punk-rock verve," wrote The New York Times of their arresting performances. In addition to playing existing modern masterpieces, they are helping to birth tomorrow's classic repertoire by commissioning new works from daring contemporary composers.

The Mivos play one of their signature pieces, a quartet by the German composer Helmut Lachenmann that miraculously expands the vocabulary of sounds for stringed instruments. They also offer Arcadiana, a spellbinding set of miniature portraits of vanished idylls by the prodigiously talented British composer Thomas Adès (who will visit Duke Performances as a collaborative pianist only two weeks after Mivos). The Mivos conclude by expanding on their usual contemporary repertoire with an arrangement of Bach's unfinished quadruple fugue from his paramount achievement, The Art of the Fugue.