Axiom Quartet

Amy Beth Kirsten “little alice”, Joan Tower “Night Fields”, and Beethoven Op. 132

Axiom Quartet’s fourth concert of Eternally Modern enters a world of strange imagination, night landscapes, and profound renewal.

Amy Beth Kirsten’s little alice turns childhood stories into something vivid and unsettling, drawing on Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Snow White, and Alice in Wonderland. The quartet players do more than play their instruments. They also whisper and whistle, pulling the string quartet toward theater from within. Joan Tower’s Night Fields follows with an intense, atmospheric landscape of motion and color, inspired by the image of a cold, moonlit night in a wheat field.

The evening culminates in Beethoven’s Op. 132, one of the most moving works of his late period. Written after a serious illness, the quartet’s central “Holy Song of Thanksgiving” stands as one of Beethoven’s great statements of recovery, gratitude, and transcendence. Together, these works ask how wonder can survive darkness, and how music can turn fragility into renewal.

The evening includes brief verbal context from the quartet, complimentary wine, and a 15-minute intermission. Business casual attire is suggested. The full concert experience will last approximately 95 minutes.

Join Axiom Quartet on Thursday, April 1 at 7:30 p.m. at Musik Halle at Houston Saengerbund, 1703 Heights Blvd., Houston, TX 77008.