What Is American: PUBLIQuartet 

SCHEDULE: 
7 p.m.: Discussion with the Artists 
8 p.m.: Concert

ADMISSION: 
Admission is free. Reservations required. 

JOIN WAITLIST

DESCRIPTION: 
“A perfect encapsulation of today’s trends in chamber music.”—The Washington Post 

The GRAMMY-nominated PUBLIQuartet will perform their latest album, What Is American, preceded by a conversation with USC Vice Provost for the Arts Josh Kun. 

Founded in 2010, the acclaimed New York City–based chamber music ensemble has received countless awards and accolades for its innovative programs, which range from 20th-century masterworks to newly commissioned pieces. PUBLIQuartet's reimagined classical works feature open-form improvisations that expand the techniques and aesthetic of the traditional string quartet.  

What Is American features creative and biting chamber improvisations on Oliver Wendell Holmes and Alice Coltrane, Vijay Iyer and Roscoe Mitchell, Tina Turner and Fats Waller, among others. According to the quartet, the concert program and album explore “the resonance between contemporary, blues, jazz, free, and rock-inflected music—all of which trace their roots back to the Black and Indigenous music that inspired Dvořák’s American String Quartet. Interrogating these traditions of our nation’s complex history, PUBLIQuartet attempts to connect the dots, illuminating the past, present, and future of American concert music.”  

Presented by USC Visions and Voices. Organized by the USC Thornton School of Music.