“Let’s Begin” for string quartet, commissioned through the “Alternating Currents” COVID-19 commissioning project by the Tesla Quartet in partnership with the Gabriela Lena Frank Academy of Creative Music will be performed live, without audience, at National Sawdust in Brooklyn, New York on Thursday, August 6, 2020. Gilbert, along with 11 other composers, were asked by the Tesla Quartet to write a 3 minute string quartet based on the Andante cantabile from Beethoven’s String Quartet in A Major, Op. 18 No. 5. The work’s title is in reference to the events of May and June 2020 in the United States that have now awoken more people across various demographics to the severe racial and social injustices in our country, it is a call to begin racial and social justice work anew, continuing and building upon the work that has gone on before.

Concert Link: https://live.nationalsawdust.org/event/tesla-quartet