Four Strings Around the World

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Irina Muresanu, Solo Violin

Jerod Tate's Oshta (Four) appears on this album.

Muresanu’s Four Strings Around the World is a compelling program celebrating the diversity of cultures around the world through the uniting voice of a single medium: the violin. The journey, designed by Irina Muresanu, starts in Europe with the fiddling buoyancy of pieces by Romanian, Russian and Irish composers (Enescu, Shchedrin and Flynn respectively) and two titanic pillars of the solo violin repertoire: Paganini’s Caprice no. 24 and the Bach Chaconne. The program continues sonic exploration through works of composers with musical roots in Persian (Reza Vali), Chinese (Bright Sheng) and Indian (Shirish Korde) cultures. Each of these pieces uses a different modal system, creating a wide variety of sound effects. After a brief detour in South America (via an Astor Piazzolla ”Tango Etude”), Four Strings visits North American sounds. (Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate and Mark O’Connor).

Muresanu will continue her endeavors to perform this program around the world, as well as commission new pieces and discover more repertoire for solo violin that evokes the spirit of a certain nation.

Four Strings Around the World not only extends the superbly talented Muresanu in new directions, but offers a glimpse into variations of violin technique and approach that would only be gleaned by attending concerts in various country fairs, Irish pubs, campfire gatherings and parlors. The only thing these works had in common was a kind of magical virtuosity that Muresanu regaled the audience with in a most facile manner...

Cape Cod Times