Shift and Riff by Eric Sessler

Alec Holcomb (Guitar I), Xiabo Pu (GII), Yunxiang Fan (GIII), Hao Yang (GIV) play Shift and Riff by Eric Sessler. This comes via Sessler’s YouTube Channel. The work was dedicated to David Starobin & Jason Vieaux and the guitar program of the Curtis Institute of Music. Sessler teaches composition at Curtis and Julliard and has some guitar training too. You might recognize his name from the work he wrote for Jason Vieaux or his various other solo and chamber works. This is a live performance in Field Hall (Curtis Institute of Music) with David Starobin conducting. Fantastic playing by these very high level students. Great piece too, very effective how the melodic material weaves in and out of the ever-forward moving texture. I wrote Sessler about the piece and he mentions, “The title comes from the the sound worlds created by the 3 sets of open strings-the music shifts (and riffs) between them and uses this idea to create dialogue and creative interplay between the quartet.”