Oranges are the only fruit in Caroline Shaw’s Van-Gogh-inspired piano quartet Thousandth Orange; Picasso, meanwhile is the starting point for Elena Kats-Chernin’s sax, marimba, and accordion enriched dive into love, death, and desire. But, completing a contemporary threesome by women composers, Dobrinka Tabakova’s 2002 string trio turns the notion of seeing on its head and grapples with the idea of visualising sound itself.
Devoted to championing women’s voices, the ‘forward thinking ensemble’ (Gramophone) enlists two star soloists for its folk-gilded brush with the plastic arts. ‘A performer who can hypnotise a room’ (Arts Desk), saxophonist Jess Gillam ‘frankly rocks’ concedes the Huffington Post; while ‘superstar cellist’ (The Times), Laura van der Heijden ‘has everything within reach to become a cello diva’ (Trouw).
