SIGNUM QUARTETT — String Quartets by Schubert, Fokkens, Selaocoe, and Dvořák

With its latest program, the Signum Quartett once again initiates a dialogue between contemporary music from South Africa and the European string quartet repertoire. Robert Fokkens’s glimpses of a half-forgotten future and Abel Selaocoe’s Umthwalo (literally, “carrying a heavy load”) explore the country’s fraught history three decades after the end of apartheid while also showing a musical path into a shared future. These two recent works are juxtaposed with quartets by Schubert and Dvořák.