Past Projects

Highlights from previous collaborations

Craftsbury Chamber Players

Young Artists in Residence, Summer 2023
Craftsbury, Vermont

In July and August 2023, the Kompass Quartet were awarded the Young Artists in Residence with the Craftsbury Chamber Players for their 2023 Season. The quartet was provided the opportunity to work alongside experienced performers, including Artistic Director Frances Rowell, Kenji Bunch, Monica Bunch, Katerine Winterstein, Mimi Hwang, and Mary Rowell. Kompass performed in two concerts programs Burlington and Hardwick Vermont, performing alongside Winterstein, Bunch, Frances and Mary Rowell in Bunch’s “ A Still Small Voice” for string octet, Mendelssohn’s String Octet in E Flat Op 20, and Grazyna Bacewicz’ String Quartet No 4.

In addition, The Kompass Quartet performed a number of community outreach programs and kid’s concerts in regional locations across northern Vermont. The quartet was tasked with curating and preparing a program of their own choosing, a challenge which allowed them to explore works they have always wanted to delve into, while sharing their love of music and their instruments with their audience in a more interactive setting in the kid’s concerts.

Craftsbury Chamber Players: More great chamber music — plus something new

— Jim Lowe, Times Argus/Rutland Herald. Published July 8, 2023. Archived Novermber 21, 2023.

Deaf Beethoven

Reinmaging Die Grosse Fuge with Charlie Morrow and The Bread and Puppet Theater

As part of their residency with the Craftsbury Chamber Players, The Kompass Quartet were given the privilege of working alongside composer and audio engineer Charlie Morrow in his re-imagining of Beethoven’s Grosse Fuge Op 133. Morrow adds seven “stretches” to Beethoven’s original work, where the music is slowed to 1/10th of the original speed. The effect is a suspension of time, dwelling in a dream-like state removed from the intensity and drama, then snapping back in.

The Kompass Quartet worked alongside Charlie Morrow to develop and execute the concept of the stretches in the most meaningful way. His version of the Grosse Fuge was performed over eight weekends in July and August 2023 at the Bread and Puppet Theater in Glover, Vermont, as part of their summer 2023 series of programs, and was intended by Morrow as a gift to his friend and the founder of Bread and Puppet, Peter Schumann.