Threads Strung Bare
by Bobby Ge
PROGRAM NOTE
Threads Strung Bare is a reflection on the unassuming significance of well-worn, frayed clothes. Growing up, I would wear the same shirts as long as I could, often to the point that their hems would come undone and their seams split apart. It wasn't any kind of fashion statement; many of these shirts were cheap memorabilia, given out at the start of a school year or at some youth event. I came to see them as little time capsules during years of rapid change among my friends and me. My family was always too sentimental to toss out my old clothes even after I had long outgrown them, and so my motley shirt collection has always made the same journeys across the globe that I have.
Musically, Threads Strung Bare is composed of two main ideas: the first a sparse, almost pointillistic soundworld filled with flared harmonics and wide leaps, and the second a warm, cyclical sequence of triads in the violin's lowest reaches. The two, initially separate, blend together, lush harmonies fraying away into spare harmonics and worn, distant tones accelerating into richly felt tapestries. The piece moves between these worlds, evoking the poignant nostalgia of gradually dissipating childhood memories.
All thanks to Clara for commissioning, recording, and helping revise the piece.
Commissioned and recorded by Clara Kim
Commissioned for the People & Places project
Completed October 6, 2025
BOBBY GE* (b. 1996) is an American-born, Shanghai-raised composer and media artist whose work engages with themes of communication, home, and hybridity. Described as “expressive and gripping” (Financial Times), “wondrously subtle… shimmeringly lovely” (Joshua Kosman), and “exciting, frenzied, unpredictable” (CityNews CBR), his work is filled with glittery textures and restless motion, often undergirded by a wry sense of humor.
Winner of the Barlow Prize, Ge has completed a diverse array of projects ranging from experimental short films to large-scale orchestral commissions. Major works include a violin concerto for Keila Wakao and the Albany Symphony, a surrealist, multimedia work for Alarm Will Sound, a song for soprano, ensemble, and electronics premiered by Mind on Fire, and a saxophone concertino for the US Navy Band.
The 2026-27 season sees several notable highlights, including a new work for the Orchestra of St. Luke’s as a DeGaetano Fellow, a performance by Alarm Will Sound at the legendary Beethovenfest Bonn, the premiere of an electroacoustic work for pianist Eunbi Kim, the premiere of a new chamber work for fivebyfive, and new string quartets for the Orange Road Quartet and the Ulysses Quartet. Further projects include new works for So Percussion, Longleash, Pathos Trio, and the Bergamot Quartet. Past engagements include performances with the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra, Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, the New England Philharmonic, the US Army Band, ~nois, icarus Quartet, the Second Ending Ensemble, violinist Clara Kim, Sputter Box, Modern Medieval Voices, Third Angle New Music, Mycelium New Music, and the Aruna Quartet.
In previous years, Ge has received fellowships from the MATA Festival, the Bang on a Can Summer Festival, the Minnesota OrchestraComposer Institute, and Copland House’s CULTIVATE program. He was the 2025-26 Sound Investment Composer-in-Residence of the Reno Chamber Orchestra, the 2023 Composer of the Year of the Sioux City Symphony, the inaugural recipient of the San Francisco Ballet’s Legacy Orchestral Composition Prize, the grand prize winner of the New York Youth Symphony’s Jon Deak First Music Commission, a winner of the Kaleidoscope Chamber Orchestra’s call for scores, and a winner of the Charles Ives Music Festival’s call for scores. Ge has received further recognition including two ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Awards (2024/26), a Society of Composers, Inc. Commission, a New Music USA Creator Development Grant, and the Ettelson Award. He was the recipient of a Copland House Residency and has held additional residencies at the Atlantic Center for the Arts, Millay Arts, and the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts.
Ge is an avid collaborator and has had the good fortune of sharing his work with a growing list of presenters that ranges from the unorthodox - the Space Telescope Science Institute, the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, NJ Audubon - to the cutting edge of new music, including Beth Morrison Projects, the Attacca Quartet, Tribeca New Music, Music from Copland House, Khemia Ensemble, Tesla Quartet, Blackbox Ensemble, JACK Quartet, and the Kintsugi Quintet. His experimental short film You Have Entered the Public Domain has screened at film festivals including the Festival L'Europe autour de l'Europe, Focus Wales, Golden State Film Festival, and the Short. Sweet. Film Festival. A dedicated educator, Ge believes firmly in the value of the arts as an expressive and uniting force, and he has collaborated with numerous educational ensembles including the New York Youth Symphony, the Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestra, the Westside Chamber Players, and the St. Olaf Band.
He is currently pursuing his Ph.D at Princeton University, and holds degrees from the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University (M.M.) and the University of California, Berkeley (B.A.). His primary teachers include Donnacha Dennehy, Nathalie Joachim, Juri Seo, Dan Trueman, Tyondai Braxton, Kevin Puts, Harold Meltzer, and Cindy Cox.
*A note on pronunciation: please read Ge as ‘Jee’ in performance contexts. For those who are curious, though, the original Chinese - 戈 - is pronounced ‘G-uh’ with a hard G.