Last week, shortly after returning from a tour and recording session in Cuba and on their way to a performance at Carnegie Hall, the Houston-based Apollo Chamber Players came to town to conduct a residency and perform at Seattle University.
Co-founded in 2008 by violinist Matthew Detrick, Apollo is passionate about exploring cultural and folk influences in classical music and commissioning new works that echo these interests. Their current aim is 20 commissions by 2020, and they are well on their way. The program in Seattle University’s Pigott Auditorium Friday night included three of these commissions, plus the String Quartet of Julia Smith (1905-1989), a Texas-born and raised composer of whom we surely should know more. Shostakovich’s String Quartet No. 8, which he wrote in three days after seeing the devastation of Dresden in WWII, completed the evening.
