String quartet no. 4

Quatuor Diotima; Pe4enkata (Adriana Nikolova), beatbox.

Electronics developed in collaboration with IRCAM. Computer music design and electronic realisation: Johannes Regnier.

Programme note

String quartet no. 4 is conceived as a collision point between two musical practices that organize sound, time, and performance according to deeply divergent, yet complementary, logics in their search for meaning. Developed in collaboration with Pe4enkata (Adriana Nikolova) and Quatuor Diotima, the project does not seek a mere juxtaposition of genres, but a radical confrontation: a true “battle” between the rigor of the written tradition, embodied by the string quartet, and the intrinsic fluidity of the oral beatbox culture.

The central challenge lies in overcoming a historical dichotomy: on one hand, the string quartet, with its intellectual legacy and consolidated structures; on the other, beatboxing, a language born in marginalized communities that constantly challenges academic hierarchies and the boundaries of music education. In this encounter, the alleged “boldness” of beatboxing is never a gratuitous or superficial gesture, but the result of extraordinary technical complexity and vocal expertise, capable of reconfiguring sonic material in real time.

The quartet’s writing encounters the beatboxer’s complex, densely layered vocality, in which breath, noise, pitch, formants and rhythmic articulation coexist. The strings absorb and transform this multiplicity through their own techniques of attack, friction and resonance; in turn, the voice encounters the quartet’s harmonic, contrapuntal and temporal thinking. Each practice becomes a means of hearing and transforming the other.

The work develops through continuous negotiation—made of experiments, conversations, and notations—that does not envision the instrumentalists merely accompanying the beatboxer. Each participant enters a space of resistance and transformation, in which the social and political dimension of making music becomes an integral part of the score. String quartet no. 4 is, therefore, not an endpoint, but a path of inquiry that questions the concepts of artistic gatekeeping, gender representation, and the very possibility of an authentic hybridization capable of pushing both instruments and the voice toward unexplored expressive territories.

Partners and forthcoming performances

Developed in collaboration with IRCAM, Quatuor Diotima and Pe4enkata, with the support of Pro Helvetia.

World premiere: ManiFeste, Paris — 10 June 2027 (provisional date).

Austrian premiere: Wien Modern, Vienna — 10 November 2027 (TBC).

Further collaborations in development: Transit Festival, Leuven — 22 October 2027 (provisional); The Black Diamond, Royal Danish Library, Copenhagen — dates to be announced, subject to confirmation.