The Sacconi Quartet’s new disc of works by Jonathan Dove, ‘In Damascus’, is released today with 
Signum Records.
The disc’s title comes from its main focus, a new work for tenor and string quartet by Jonathan Dove called In Damascus, performed by the Sacconi Quartet and tenor Mark Padmore.
The text, taken from a poem by Syrian poet Ali Safar, looks directly and unwaveringly at the plight of the people caught up in the Syrian conflict. The piece received its world premiere at the Sacconi Chamber Music Festival in Folkestone in 2016.
The Sacconi Quartet present this new work alongside Jonathan Dove’s string quartet work Out of Time, and his Piano Quintet – performed with pianist Charles Owen.
The disc has recently 
received a 4* review from The Guardian: “The beauty of the piece, for tenor and string quartet, is its restraint. It doesn’t sensationalise, get maudlin, moralise or politicise. The words are direct and the music respects that. The performance does, too: clear, focused playing from the Sacconi Quartet and lucid, unswerving narrative from tenor Mark Padmore.”