This Nova Linea Musica commission will be premiered by the Owls Quartet in the Rare Birds concert on October 29, 2025.

Ayane Kozasa and I met Gabriella Smith in 2009 when all three of us were first year students at the Curtis Institute of Music, and we become fast friends and collaborators. Since then we’ve both been lucky to commission, premiere, and champion many of her works on our own and in various chamber music ensembles, including the Aizuri Quartet and yMusic. “Aegolius” is the first piece Gabriella has written for Owls.

The title refers to a genus of small true owls, whose delightfully rhythmic calls Gabriella found stuck in her head after attending a festival of Steve Reich’s music in Paris. In this piece, Gabriella repeats and manipulates the owl’s calls, phasing pitch and speed over time to create a mind-bending realization of, well, a quartet of Owls. Also hidden in the piece are subtle references to Haydn’s string quartet op. 33 no. 3, nicknamed “the Bird”, a fitting homage to one of the early masters of the string quartet form.

— Gabriel Cabezas

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