Serenata of Santa Fe to Perform String Quartet No. 3: Night Songs (Nachtliederen)

String Quartet No. 3: Night Songs (Nachtliederen) was commissioned and premiered by Kronos Quartet and has since been performed throughout the U.S. and Europe. It was inspired by the life and writing of young Dutch Jewish writer and Holocaust victim Etty Hillesum (1914-1943), a writer many consider the 20-something Anne Frank. However Hillesum has not yet received the widespread attention of Frank.

In creative preparation for writing the quartet, Alexandra du Bois traveled throughout The Netherlands (including Hillesum’s home blocks from Frank’s in Amsterdam, Kamp Westerbork, the Nazi transit camp at which Hillesum volunteered, wrote journals, and was ultimately detained) and Poland, including Auschwitz, where Hillesum was killed in 1943, after receiving grants from The Netherland-America Foundation and Indiana University to travel in the footsteps of Etty Hillesum to develop pre-compositional material and receive and record aural impressions.