Instigated by Ornette Coleman, who told Graham Haynes that writing a string quartet was the only way to understand harmolodics, Graham has created a series of through-composed chamber works in recent years, including a flute quintet, percussion ensemble, and a string quartet. Taken together, these works crown decades of Graham’s thinking about improvisation and composition, and serve as meticulous building blocks for his opus for 40-voice chorus and full orchestra, Requiem for Young Black Men Assassinated by Police in America.

​In 2012, Dr. Yusef Lateef asked Momenta Quartet to give the world premiere of his Quartet No. 3, and gave them the scores. He passed away shortly thereafter, and never got to hear the score, which premiered in 2015, performed live. Says Momenta: "The quartet is fully through-composed, but you'll hear hallmarks of Yusef's style—his use of modes, intervallic matrices, and non-Western musical styles. He leaves most of the interpretive decisions to the performers: tempi, dynamics, phrasing. As a creative musician, he trusted us to be the same."

​As Momenta Quartet, violinists Emilie-Anne Gendron and Alex Shiozaki, violist Stephanie Griffin, and cellist Michael Haas perform contemporary music from all aesthetic backgrounds alongside great music from the recent and distant past. The quartet has premiered over 200 works, collaborated with over 250 living composers, and was praised by The New York Times for its “diligence, curiosity and excellence.”

Graham Haynes, the Bahia, Brazil-based composer, bandleader, and musician, expands and confounds what we understand as jazz and electronic music. Son of the drummer Roy Haynes, raised among the greatest figures in improvised music and art in New York, Graham’s work grows out of a keen sense of New York’s many histories of music and musical movements. His is a voyage of constant departure and return to his native city, enriched by lifelong immersion in global musical practices and emerging sonic forms.

This event is part of Graham's residency at FourOneOne. The project, over the course of four weeks in March and April, spans performances, master classes, listening parties, and conversation with Robin D. G. Kelley; Adam Rudolph and Maalem Hassan Hakmoun; Vijay Iyer; Nublu Orchestra; Shakoor Hakeem and Lucie Vítková; Momenta Quartet, and others.