“Captivating…breathtaking tour de force… The Venuti String Quartet plays with joie de vivre!” – The Whole Note
(Halifax/Kjipuktuk, NS) Leaf Music and the Venuti String Quartet announce the distribution of their new recording Drew Jurecka & Maurice Ravel: String Quartets (VSQ202401).
Drew Jurecka & Maurice Ravel: String Quartets celebrates Ravel’s 150th birthday but begins with member and co-founder Drew Jurecka’s string quartet, a composition that explores and blends classical and jazz influences. This is followed by Ravel’s only string quartet in F Major, composed during this student years at the Paris Conservatory. The album concludes with The Spider, a collaborative piece at breakneck speed by Jurecka and Jay Danley, paying tribute to Carl Stalling, who wrote music for Looney Toons and Merry Melodies cartoons.
The Venuti String Quartet brings together four of the most in-demand musicians in Toronto’s vibrant music scene (Rebekah Wolkstein and Drew Jurecka, violins; Shannon Knights, viola and Amahl Arulanandam, cello), hailing from esteemed Toronto ensembles including the Canadian Opera Company Orchestra, Payadora Ensemble, Schmaltz & Pepper and VC2. Founded with genre-flexibility in mind, the group is equally at home in recording studios or onstage playing alongside a range of artists in almost any genre (e.g. Alessia Cara, Laila Biali, Jill Barber and her recent release, Encore, Donovan Woods) as they are performing the great classics and original compositions and arrangements. In concert, the Quartet enjoys pairing nonclassical music with works of the great composers, as they have done with their debut album, combining the original composition of Grammy-nominated multi-instrumentalist, producer, arranger and composer Drew Jurecka with one of his great inspirations, the beautiful and dynamic Quartet by Maurice Ravel.
Drew Jurecka’s string quartet was completed over a ten-year period from 2010-2020. An accomplished jazz and classical violinist, Jurecka’s composition explores his diverse musical experiences through the rich vocabulary of the string quartet. Each movement takes its inspiration from a different style of music, seen through the lens of classic string quartet form and composition, including impressionism, jazz improvision and tango techniques. In 1903, Maurice Ravel composed his only string quartet at the age of 28; the work is considered one of the greatest masterworks of the string quartet repertoire.
Leaf Music is an independent recording label based in Halifax, Nova Scotia and Nashville, Tennessee, making and distributing high-quality classical music recordings by artists and composers from across Canada. Our growing catalogue of solo, orchestral, and chamber music is distributed by Naxos of America to the world’s most important music retailers, download providers, and streaming services. Leaf is also a provider of professional audio and video production, post-production services and integrated music marketing and distribution in Canada.
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MEDIA CONTACT:
For more information/photos or to arrange interviews, please contact Peggy Walt, peggy@leaf-music.ca
(902) 422-5403 (office) or (902) 476-1096 (cell).
