SAN JOSE — One of the most stimulating and consistently inventive new string quartets we’ve heard in years has been launched by Daniel Asia, 53, of the University of Arizona faculty. It’s the seven-movement Quartet No. 3, which had its world premiere in San Francisco in March, and heard again here (with a few revisions) via the Cypress String Quartet’s concert May 18.

Asia’s music highlights an engaging needle-spray of sound, influenced both by traditional American forms and the livelier side of the Second Vienna School. Particularly striking are the irregular little stops in the music, never settling into a predictable routine. Rhythms, however irregular, are the driving force.

The jocular opening movement blazes with originality, offering jazz-like syncopation. Two of the lyrical interludes are so epigrammatic, you could see this 26-minute opus as essentially a five-movement concept. The whimsy of the third movement is hard to define on first hearing, rich in ideas and directions, quirky-volatile in its outbursts, while the fifth suggests some lullaby, with solos on violin and cello. The sixth movement is the crux, combining ideas from Nos. 2 and 4, while spinning out a palindromic format. The fast-flying finale recalls the opening of Webern’s “Five Pieces for String Quartet,” Op. 5 — bold, witty, fun-loving. And the piece goes full circle, ending as it started on the note E. Like any opus so rich in ideas, it fairly cries out for repeat hearings in order to be properly assimilated.

‘Seer’ quartet merits second hearing

Every year, the Cypress String Quartet performs new music it has commissioned from a living composer. And every year, I listen and say to myself, “Why can’t they play that twice?”

I mention this because Cypress’ annual “Call and Response” concert has just passed, and I’ve been reflecting on the new sounds the quartet is bringing into the world. This time, the music is by Daniel Asia, whose String Quartet No.3 employs a private shadow language, which he says is inspired by the rhythms of jazz and popular music. But the relationship is oblique, embedded, waiting to reveal itself, through time.

Played by Cypress, the music put out a personal call. It was conversational – speech-like, sometimes argumentative and generally dark, even when it announced itself as whimsical. The music is highly introverted; Asia has taken those outside influences and brought them to a private, internal place. The Beatles? Not really. Davis? Maybe, because of Asia’s dark spirit.

The opening movement of Asia’s piece was very much like that. I imagined, as the four instruments talked in changing combinations, two couples schmoozing at the dinner table, relaxed, riffing on ideas, arguing and popping with excitement. The second movement was more clearly melodic and haunting. The third, titled “Whimsical,” drooped and melted. The fourth brought to mind a disjointed hoedown. The fifth, a soulful adagio, was a dark potent hymn, long-lined and ruminative.

And so it went through seven movements, with moments of occasional innocence (the Beatles, finally?), motoric rhythms (rock ‘n’ roll or jazz, obliquely?) and playful conjuring of colors and textures, new sounds for a string quartet. Asia is an experimenter (Davis?), a careful thinker who also takes risks.

Let’s hear it again.

The three-movement piece is a wonder of textures, mixing fingered and open-string timbres with extensive use of string harmonics.

It’s a beautifully constructed, substantive work with supported lyrical melodies wrapped in light, airy fragments.

This century has given birth to only a handful of great piano trios. University of Arizona professor Daniel Asia’s may be one of them.

It was akin to the work of impressionist painters – the individual dots and fine strokes generated a sense of light, air, form, and space…

Asia captured the gentle surrealism and quirky humor of the Pines poems in a simply effective (but not simple-minded) fashion.

Larry McDonald (of the Oberlin Woodwind Quintet) agrees with this writer that Pines Songs should be a major work in the wind quintet repertoire–a serious and well-crafted piece.

The open and close show a moonstruck Frank Bridge-like ethereality, the adagietto breathes like a gorgeous long-spanned aria and the middle section of Scherzo No. 1 is enjoyably cockeyed. Shames’ virtuosic performance hummed with pride of ownership.

B for J, conducted by the composer, Daniel Asia, featured sensitive, finely-wrought melodies.

B for J was another highlight of the program. Alternating sections of lyrically composed music for flute and bass clarinet were contrasted with a solo trombone and cushioned by an otherworldly bed of higher strings, synthesized organ and rumbling basses. The work seemed timeless and ethereal and was well-received by the audience.

B for J alternates and combines a pair of simple, even pretty melodies (one for flute and bassoon, the other for trombone) which are given an enigmatically tense accompaniment. The work was immediately likable.

101 Great American Ensemble Works

In 2004, the membership of Chamber Music America nominated American works for small ensembles that they believed to be the most significant in the repertoire. From over 1,000 nominations, an independent panel chose 101 of the most-nominated pieces that best represent the diversity of style and instrumentation that comprises CMA’s membership.

We encourage our members to use this list of great American compositions in their programming in the coming seasons.

Asia, Daniel:

String Quartet #2
String Quartet

Vocal Music

ON OSSABAW ISLAND DREAM

P. STULTS, NORTHWEST ARTS
Most rewarding of this concert, and in fact of all the others referred to here, was the world premiere of Ossabaw Island Dream, a song cycle by Daniel Asia set to similarly titled poetry of Paul Pines — rewarding because it is accessible, interesting, well-written, and new.

M. BARGREEN, SEATTLE TIMES
Asia has won consistent praise for both his compositions and his work with the New York new-music ensemble Musical Elements. His Ossabaw Island Dream, a song cycle given its West Coast premiere in these concerts (by the Northwest Chamber Orchestra), is a well-crafted work full of complex meters and interesting textures….found considerable favor with the audience.

ON PINES SONGS

T. PFAFF, SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER
Pines Songs favors a freely tonal idiom with a strong melodic profile.

L. CAVALLARO, NEW HAVEN REGISTER
Pines Songs captured the many moods imaginatively, whether conveying gloom, mirth, pessimism, or surreality. ‘White Pillars’ reflected the strangeness effectively in both solo part and accompaniment, while the ending of ‘I Walk Out To The End’ had some lovely tonal colors.

J. ROCKWELL, NEW YORK TIMES
The concert ended with Mr. Asia’s 25-minute “Pines Songs” (1984), which consists of five settings of poems by Paul Pines and two optional instrumental interludes, played on Tuesday for the first time in this country. It sounded appealing, in its Impressionistic way.

ON SAND II

D. HENAHAN, NEW YORK TIMES
Mr. Asia, an accomplished young composer who has already received a string of awards, grants and commissions, writes in a style that might be described as post-Webern Impressionism, since echoes of late Debussy as well as mid century serialism could be heard in this work (Sand II)…there was a promising talent on display here…

A. MARKS, MUSICAL TIMES, LONDON
Asia’s own work, Sand II, contained beautiful textures and inventive scoring.

W. SALISBURY, CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER
The concert’s central work was Sand II, a set of six poems by Gary Snyder for voice, flutes, clarinet, percussion and pianos. The voice, given a bluesy inflection, alternately rose out of crumbling sororities, faded into the blurred textures and created mysterious moods.

Solo Instruments

ON YOUR CRY WILL BE A WHISPER

H. PINTO, SAO PAULO, BRAZIL
The highlight was Daniel Asia’s ‘Your Cry Will Be a Whisper’, a new addition to the guitar recital repertoire. (Your Cry Will Be a Whisper) is written in a contemporary idiom and the elaborate guitar writing is rare for a composer who is not a guitarist.

ON PLUM-DS II

A. RICH, NEW WEST
(In a concert by the Independent Composers Association in Santa Monica) the music ranged from awful to sublime…I particularly liked Daniel Asia’s Plum DS II, a marvelously spirited, burbling piece.

T. PUTNAM, BUFFALO COURIER-EXPRESS
Beautiful flutey harmony, richness of parts.

ON DREAM SEQUENCE I

A. CLEMENTS, FINANCIAL TIMES
Daniel Asia’s Dream Sequence I for solo amplified trombone…had the merits of brevity and some wit. The composer describes it as the dream of a fictional trombone player…that could hardly fail to have its humorous moments.

Recordings

ON GATEWAYS

M. BARGREEN, THE SEATTLE TIMES
Schub’s performance of the challenging but listener-friendly Piano Concerto is a tour de force. Sedares and the orchestra handle the complex and varied orchestration with an excellence that underscores the New Zealand Symphony’s fine reputation….this recording should make a major step toward getting Asia the recognition he deserves.

W. SIMMONS, FANFARE
Daniel Asia is one of the most prominent American composers of his generation…Certainly the centerpiece of the disc is Asia’s 37-minute Piano Concerto…This is the deepest, most personal music I have heard from Asia.

ON IVORY

E. HURWITT, SCHWANN OPUS
Daniel Asia is among the most accomplished and accessible composers of this generation…. He is a welcome addition to the roster of our strongest group of living composers, the tonal postmodernists: Bolcom, Del Tredici, Adams, et al. This new disc is highly recommended.

P. BURWASSER, FANFARE
The material on the CD, while sophisticated in language and structure, is deeply satisfying on an emotional and intellectual level. Asia transcends the sheer technical demands of his craft to achieve a powerful sense of expression.

ON SYMPHONIES NO. 2 & NO. 3 (NEW WORLD)

K. LAFAVE, AMERICAN RECORD GUIDE
With the release of the Second and Third Symphonies, Asia must be considered a major force in American symphonism.

D. B. GREEN, THE JERUSALEM REPORT
Just when you thought it’s never safe to enter a concert hall again (or buy a recording of contemporary music), along comes American composer Daniel Asia with two new symphonies… This music is complex, mature, and uplifting…

P. A. SNOOK, FANFARE
Not to be missed by anyone interested in the future of serious music-making in this land!!!

ON DAN ASIA (ALBANY)

R. CARL, FANFARE
This album will be of most interest to collectors interested in a portrait of an emerging composer’s voices, or in contemporary vocal music, as Sand II is an attractive addition to the literature.

Musical Elements

As Music Director of Musical Elements

J. ROCKWELL, NEW YORK TIMES
The new-music concerts presented by the group Musical Elements are distinguished by a willingness to combine new pieces with classics of the 20th -century repertory…a fine concert.

BLECHNER, SOHO WEEKLY NEWS
Daniel Asia skillfully conducted the performers, mostly young and very talented, in a program that was intelligently balanced between seriousness and good humor.

J. ROCKWELL, NEW YORK TIMES
As usual with Musical Elements, the performances, most of them conducted by Daniel Asia or Robert Beaser, were very good.

A. PORTER, THE NEW YORKER
I try not to miss Elements concerts. Contemporary-music events are sometimes solemn, gritty affairs; Mr. Asia and Mr. Beaser have a gift for choosing works that combine charm and grace with challenge…I’ve not heard the ensemble give a sloppy, uncaring, or dry performance, or misrepresent the spirit of a composition. The playing is warm, eager, and communicative, and the individual instrumentalists are expert.

J. ROCKWELL, NEW YORK TIMES
Mr. Beaser conducted with real spunk, and Mr. Asia did equally well by the Cummings and Del Tredici scores.

WECHSLER, MUSIC JOURNAL
Co-Music Directors Daniel Asia and Robert Beaser conducted the program, an evening which showed once again the value of Musical Elements, a superior contemporary music group not tied down by “friends” or cliques.

A. PORTER
The New Yorker

Daniel Asia and Robert Beaser, the musical directors of the ensemble Musical Elements, regularly devise coherent, attractive, and satisfying programs…. The performance, conducted by Daniel Asia, was delicate and intent.

NEW MILFORD, NEWS-TIMES
Remarkably suave and well-routined.

T. PAGE, NEW YORK TIMES
Musical Elements, a chamber ensemble under the direction of Daniel Asia and Robert Beaser, continues to present some of the most varied and rewarding programs in New York.

Guest Conductor

A. MARKS, MUSICAL TIMES, LONDON
Daniel Asia conducted (the Endymion Ensemble, Tate Gallery, London) with prodigious perception, shaping Varese’s Octandre into something wonderfully articulate and expressive. The group’s blend of poise and power was formidable (and) the playing remained exemplary throughout the evening.

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
Under Asia’s baton, the ensemble (San Francisco Contemporary Music Players) gave a strongly etched performance. In fact, the evening provided the consistently skillful performances for which this group can be relied on. Asia conducted with a precision but also a measure of freedom, and the instrumentalists rose capably to their tasks.

T. PFAFF, SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER
Asia conducted the complex goings-on (concert of the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players) with a steady hand, freeing his players to tackle their assignments with individual insight and verve.

MUSICAL TIMES, LONDON
Takemitsu’s characteristically limpid Water Ways opened the programme, conducted by Daniel Asia and sensitively played, with its shimmering, stereophonic and microtonal harps sounding at times like a huge Voix celeste.

THE TIMES, LONDON
Takemitsu’s Water Ways, directed by Daniel Asia, could hardly fail to give pleasure with its music for Messiaen’s end-of-time quartet discovered through splashing harps and vibraphones.

FINANCIAL TIMES, LONDON
Daniel Asia conducted the Takemitsu with tact and care.

FINANCIAL TIMES, LONDON
(Asia) offered a strong and well organized account of Varese’s evergreen and brilliantly effective Octandre.

THE TIMES, LONDON
There was also a sprightly, well drilled and well judged performance of George Benjamin’s Octet under the American conductor Daniel Asia.

FINANCIAL TIMES, LONDON
The Octet was conducted with care and well judged pacing by Daniel Asia.