b'Records in 2015. She is currently a Graduate Fellow in Music Composition at Princeton University.Strum is the culminating result of several versions of a string quintet I wrote in 2006. It was originally written for the Providence String Quartet and guests of Community MusicWorks Players, then arranged for string quartet in 2008 with several small revisions. In 2012, the piece underwent its final revisions with a rewrite of both the introduction and the ending for the Catalyst Quartet in a performance celebrating the 15th annual Sphinx Competition.Originally conceived for the formation of a cello quintet, the voicing is often spread wide over the ensemble, giving the music an expansive quality of sound. Within Strum I utilized texture motives, layers of rhythmic or harmonic ostinati that string together to form a bed of sound for melodies to weave in and out. The strumming pizzicato serves as a texture motive and the primary driving rhythmic underpinning of the piece. Drawing on American folk idioms and the spirit of dance and movement, the piece has a kind of narrative that begins with fleeting nostalgia and transforms into ecstatic celebration.-Jessie MontgomeryInstrumentationstrings Duration7Edward Elgar(1857-1934)Sospiri, Op. 70Composed 1914Edward Elgar composed Sospiri in 1914, on the eve of World War I. Though Sospiri was initially intended as a companion piece to his popular miniature Salut damour for violin and piano, Elgar switched to the string orchestra format as better suited to the pieces melancholy intensity. Sospiri, which means sighs in Italian, originally referred to the sighs of a lover, but it came to evoke a more general expression of sorrow and longing. Elgar achieves his signature princetonsymphony.org/ 11'