Attacca Quartet

In the 20 years since its founding as a student ensemble at the Juilliard School, the two-time Grammy-winning Attacca Quartet has been at the vanguard of a new generation of American ensembles making their own rules about what contemporary chamber music can be. Gleefully gliding between the music of the 18th to the 21st century, Attacca’s recent recording projects have included a minimalist/Renaissance mashup featuring works by Philip Glass, Arvo Pärt, and Renaissance composers like John Dowland and Orlando Gibbons; an award-winning collaboration with composer Caroline Shaw; and most recently, a collection of strings-and-electronics arrangements produced by Michael League of the jazz-fusion band Snarky Puppy. Here in Berkeley, Attacca spins out works from these efforts and others as part of its “playlist” program, modeled after music streaming service playlists. Beethoven’s ravishing late-period Op. 131 quartet serves as a counterweight to what promises to be an engagingly eclectic program. “[Attacca] lives in the present aesthetically, without rejecting the virtues of the musical past” (The Nation).