STRATA XI，for String Quartet（2015）

This is the eleventh work in my chamber music series，STRATA，and my fourth string quartet following STRATAⅠ，Ⅴ and ?. This series started in 1988 based on the idea of regarding registers as strata (the plural form of stratum)，from
which the title is derived. While I continue to write pieces，however，the initial concept changed in various aspects. This time，I returned to the original idea. To put it simply，I restarted from STRATAⅠ. I used the same instruments and stared at strata created by the four string parts. That became the act of composing STRATA ?. The work doesn't have development in the general sense but represents a panorama of strata. It consists of four movements (fast-slow-fast-slow). In fact，before writing the STRATA series，I wrote a long string quartet when I was a student，but I didn't include it in my
list of works. Anyway，the thought of writing string quartet has never disappeared from me. It always weighs heavily on
my mind.