Samantha Bennett and George Nickson. Photo by Matthew Holler.

Ten years ago violinist Samantha Bennett and percussionist George Nickson founded ensembleNEWSRQ, a chamber music ensemble devoted to playing and championing the music of contemporary composers. A decade later, ensembleNEWSRQ is opening its 10th season with Tangled Whispers on October 27, the first of six programs produced by the organization this season.

“We focus exclusively on the works of living and contemporary composers,” says Bennett. “We’ve played over 250 unique pieces, have commissioned around 20 works and have done a number of world, North American and Florida premieres. We’re one of the few organizations in the state that’s solely focused on presenting this type of work with local artists.”

Tangled Whispers furthers the organization’s mission with the presentation of four intimate and varied works. “All of the music is very intricate, with a lot of sounds that push the boundaries on the soft end of things. A lot of what we do with contemporary music can be very loud and feature large forces—with this concert we’re inviting people to lean in to what we’re presenting on a more intimate scale and to turn on your ears to hear music on a different level.”

Tangled Whispers kicks off with Jerod Tate’s Inchokkillissa, written for guitar and percussion. Tate, a member of the Chickasaw Nation, derived the melody for Inchokkillissa from the merging of Native American musical traditions and standardized church hymns brought in by white settlers. “There’s this interplay that’s referenced throughout the piece, in which when you’re borrowing from both musical backgrounds, you’re creating something unique that’s different from either tradition on their own.”

Following Inchokkillissa is Amy Williams’ 2024 piece, Tangled Madrigal, written for a string quartet. Tangled Madrigal takes inspiration from Baroque music, putting a contemporary twist on the style of musical composition from the 16th and 17th centuries. The third work is Sebastian Currier’s 1996 composition Whispers. “Whispers is an exploration of the edge of audibility of sound. It’s also a meditation on fragility and the space between sounds as well,” says Bennett. “It’s very subtle in how he uses instrumentation to create suspense, tension and these fleeting musical motifs.”

The program ends with Elliot Carter’s Triple Duo. First premiering in 1983, Triple Duo is the oldest of the works presented in Tangled Whispers, yet according to Bennett, perhaps the most contemporary sounding of them all. “It’s a little bit more rhythmically focused and engaged rather than harmonically. When you listen to it live, you get a sense of the acrobatics the performers have to do for the music to come off the page,” says Bennett.”

Tangled Whispers, October 27, 7:30pm, First Congregational Church, 1031 S Euclid Ave., Sarasota, 34237

Samantha Bennett and George Nickson. Photo by Matthew Holler.

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