Please press the play button above to hear the recorded interview, which was recently broadcast on KMFA 89.5.

invoke is the name of the current Young Professional String Quartet in Residence at UT’s Butler School of Music, but it doesn’t take more than a few seconds of one of their original compositions to understand that they are very different from your normal graduate-level string quartet.

For starters, they’re already working on their second album. They also almost exclusively perform original compositions that have been called “not classical… but not not classical.” The same phrase could describe the ensemble’s instrumental make-up. Although the four members play instruments typical of a string quartet (that’s two violins, a viola, and a cello), they also augment their work with vocals, a mandolin, a banjo, and— in at least one instance— a toy piano. Their music encompasses traditions including bluegrass, Appalachian fiddle tunes, jazz, minimalism, and more.   

While listeners are more likely to find invoke performing on a stage somewhere on Sixth Street than in a traditional concert hall, they do indeed “recite” — at least, that's what the Facebook event listing for their concert on May 2 declares. The program starts at 7:30 pm in UT’s Bates Recital Hall. Two of the string band’s four members stopped by KMFA to introduce themselves and their music.

 More information can be found on their website at invokesound.com.