This program weaves together themes of nature, ecopoetics, and heritage through a new work for string quartet and mezzo-soprano by composer Anthony Cheung, inspired by the poetry of Arthur Sze and Victoria Chang. Sze’s work, often associated with the ecopoetics movement, and Chang’s reflections on the natural world, both draw from traditional Asian poetic forms while resonating deeply with contemporary sensibilities. This collaboration amplifies Asian voices across disciplines—poet, composer, and performers alike—and reflects a shared reverence for nature and cultural inheritance.
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The Grammy Award–winning Parker Quartet and Singaporean-British mezzo-soprano Fleur Barron join forces for this program, bringing together two of today’s most compelling voices in chamber music and vocal performance. Internationally recognized for their “fearless, yet probingly beautiful” playing (The Strad), the Parker Quartet has, since its founding in 2002, established itself as one of the preeminent ensembles of its generation, celebrated for its fresh interpretations of the canon and its passionate advocacy for contemporary music. Equally acclaimed, Fleur Barron—hailed as “a knockout performer” (The Times) and winner of the 2025 Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording—is a magnetic and versatile artist mentored by Barbara Hannigan. Together, they create a partnership that embodies both tradition and bold modern vision.
// This is a seated performance. If you require accessibility accommodations, please email boxoffice@nationalsawdust.org.
ABOUT PARKER QUARTET
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Grammy Award–winning Parker Quartet is acclaimed for its fearless performances, deep musical insight, and commitment to both classical masterworks and contemporary music. Formed in 2002, the Quartet performs regularly on major international stages, including Carnegie Hall, Wigmore Hall, and
the Konzerthaus Berlin.
The 2025–26 season features The Schubert Project, a series of collaborations exploring Schubert’s late chamber works with cellists Jay Campbell, Paul Watkins, and Raman Ramakrishnan. The Quartet also tours Hawaii and continues work with mezzo-soprano Fleur Barron.
Champions of new music, they’ve commissioned works by Augusta Read Thomas, Anthony Cheung, and Wang Lu, and recorded for ECM, Zig-Zag, and Naxos—the latter earning a Grammy for their Ligeti Quartets.
The Parker Quartet serves as Blodgett Artists-in-Residence at Harvard University and maintains residencies at the University of South Carolina and Walnut Hill School for the Arts.
ABOUT FLEUR BARRON
Hailed as “a knockout performer” by The Times, Singaporean-British mezzo Fleur Barron won a 2025 GRAMMY Award for Best Opera Recording, in which she sang the title role in Kaija Saariaho’s Adriana Mater with the San Francisco Symphony under Esa-Pekka Salonen. A passionate interpreter of opera, symphonic works and chamber music ranging from the baroque to the contemporary, she is mentored by Barbara Hannigan.
Fleur Barron opens her 2025-26 season with a debut at the Salzburg Festival, reuniting with Esa-Pekka Salonen and Peter Sellars for One Morning Turns into an Eternity, a staged creation featuring Mahler’s Abschied from Das Lied von der Erde. She continues her collaboration with Peter Sellars in a return to the title role of Kaija Saariho’s Adriana Mater for her debut at Teatro dell’Opera di Roma. She also makes a house and role debut as Cornelia in Handel’s Giulio Cesare at Maggio Musicale Fiorentino; performs a staged version of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde directed by Lemi Ponifasio at The Barbican; Sir George Benjamin’s Into the Little Hill, conducted by the composer, at the Tongyeong Festival in Korea; Piacere in Handel’s Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno with La Nuova Musica under David Bates at Wigmore Hall; and appears in workshop performances of Bryce Dessner’s Night Sky with Exit Wounds, a monodrama being conceived for Fleur Barron, directed by Kaneza Schaal, upon the poetry of Ocean Vuong.
The mezzo-soprano’s 2025-26 symphonic calendar reflects her artistic versatility across a broad range of repertoire. She debuts with the New York Philharmonic under the baton of Gustavo Dudamel in the world premiere of David Lang’s oratorio The Wealth of Nations; debuts with the Berlin Philharmonic and Kirill Petrenko in Mahler’s Eighth Symphony, which also tours to the Salzburg Easter Festival; and she returns both to the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra at the invitation of Nathalie Stutzmann for Mozart’s Requiem and Bach’s Mass in b minor, respectively. She solidifies her reputation as a leading Mahler interpreter on international stages, singing Kindertotenlieder with the Czech Philharmonic under Semyon Bychkov and with the RAI National Symphony Orchestra, Torino; Das Lied von der Erde with the Aalborg Symphony Orchestra with frequent artistic collaborator Ludovic Morlot and with the Britten Sinfonia; and the composer’s Third Symphony both at the Palau de la Musica Valencia and at the Colorado Music Festival. Other performances include Alma Mahler’s Fünf Lieder with RAI National Symphony Orchestra, Respighi’s Il tramonto with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra under Carlo Rizzi, and Mason Bates’ Passage with Nashville Symphony led by Giancarlo Guerrero.
Highlights of the 2025-26 recital stage include a French Mélodie program with Kirill Gerstein at Festival Ravel and a North American tour with Trio Afiori, a voice-clarinet-piano trio newly formed with Anthony McGill and Gloria Chien. The trio has a residency and concert at Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center before giving concerts in Reno, Nevada and in Portland and Eugene, Oregon. With her long-time duo partner Julius Drake, Fleur Barron gives concerts in Genoa, South Korea, Paris, London, Leeds, and Germany; she joins the Australian String Quartet at the Helsinki Festival and the Parker Quartet at National Sawdust in Brooklyn, New York. Fleur Barron also undertakes a residency with LIFE Victoria Barcelona, for which she performs two recitals with pianist Kunal Lahiry and coaches young artists.
Highlights of recent seasons include tours of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra under Daniel Harding; Schoenberg’s Four Songs, Op. 22 with Vladimir Jurowski and the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin; Claude Vivier’s Wo bist du Licht and Stravinsky’s Pulcinella with Barbara Hannigan and the London Symphony Orchestra; Mahler’s Des Knaben Wunderhorn with Nathalie Stutzmann and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra; tour performances and a commercial recording of Ravel’s Shéhérazade and Trois Poèmes de Mallarmé with the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra; Ottavia in Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea at the Aix-en- Provence Festival, Penelope in Monteverdi’s Il ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria on tour with Baroque ensemble I Gemelli, Concepcion in Ravel’s L’heure Espagnole with the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra, and Comrade Chin in Huang Ruo’s M. Butterfly with the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican Centre.
Fleur Barron’s discography extends from Hasse and Purcell to Brahms, Barber, Ravel, and Saariaho with labels such as Deutsche Grammophon and Pentatone. She is committed to the way music facilitates cross-cultural dialogue and healing and she is passionate about curating inclusive chamber music programming that amplifies the voices of diverse communities. Born in Northern Ireland to a Singaporean mother and British father, Fleur Barron grew up in Hong Kong and later New York. The artist holds degrees from Columbia University (B.A. Comparative Literature) and Manhattan School of Music (M.M. Vocal Performance).