Paul Pinto & Quince Ensemble – The Approach, Ep. 1-3

released digitally September 4th, 2026

The Approach, Episodes 1-3 depicts the first 36 minutes of a surreal, episodic song cycle by Paul Pinto, created especially for the treble voices of Quince Ensemble and situated within Pinto’s voluble lyricism and electronic sound world.

The narrative (almost parenthetical to the eccentric musings and tangents in the libretto) takes place on Christmas Eve in 2016 when four bandmates (The Quiet One, The Sad One, The Immortal One and The Queens Girl) meet a mysterious “moody and cash-strapped” sailor in New York’s labyrinthine subway system, and decide to follow her on quixotic meanderings of subterranean New York, the rail lines of the continent, past lives, unspoken anxieties, and dream worlds. Through the sailor, the band (re)discovers love: of the sailor, of themselves, of each other, of New York, of humanity in general.

Pinto first began working on the libretto in a Times Square Broadway theatre dressing room in 2017. Quince premiered the first three episodes at Merkin Hall in 2023 and went into the studio with Pinto and legendary engineer/sound artist Tom Hamilton, recording in the TriBeCa studio of Robert Ashley (with whom Pinto worked). This work sits alongside Pinto’s still-developing major works like Whiteness, MANO A MANO, and Estabanico, of which he says, “I’m invested more in making impressions than on making one definitive version”. This collection of three episodes is being released to capture the initial thrust of the piece.

Now, ten years after the events of the song cycle, Pinto compares The Approach to the New York train lines themselves: “The subway system feels like an unfinishable epic. I’ve been riding those trains since I was a few days old. So whether it be childhood labyrinth, teenage romance, or whatever ‘early career’ means in our unstable times, The Approach is nostalgic, it looks back with sentimentality, and feels like an interminable wellspring.”

Quince have previously devoted albums to works by David Lang, Asuka Kakitani and Tomás Gueglio, and The Approach is very much an album and piece crafted for these performers. As a followup to their 2025 album DUST BOWL, which centers on climate change and migration, The Approach moves the ensemble from more traditional ballads toward surreal contemporary hyperballads. Other upcoming projects for the ensemble include performances of Courtney Bryan’s Requiem and Steve Reich’s Tehellim with Cordancia Chamber Orchestra, and their Miller Theatre Early Music Series debut in February 2027. 

“The best quality of The Approach is the sensitivity that Pinto brings to writing for the group’s individual talents. There are no vocal challenges for Quince, and this work proves it. They effortlessly fired off radiophonic 1960s soul-harmony chants at a tempo marking of 220 Words per Minute (WPM), then instantly changed gears to produce beautiful homophonic bell tones.” –
Seth Colter Walls, The New York Times

At every blink? Voluntary or un-? In sync with the eyelids? Responding to each one? If willed, could she suppress it? Could one assess a change if, more or less, her mood had stayed the same, remained unchanged, would we see variance of hue, or do you think at every blink her mood is modified?
(Episode Two: The G Train)

And motionless they were, however relative that word may be on a moving train. Maybe better to say how unchanging they were, even though their life and their feelings for it were changing so unnoticeably fast. The Sad One notices. She always notices. By the way, she wasn’t very sad at all – just into her routines. She defines herself very much by her routines, and taking subways with strangers may not have been so unroutine for her, but falling in love with them and missing her stop certainly was.
(Episode Three: The Creek)

Composed by Paul Pinto
Commissioned and performed by Quince
Carrie Henneman Shaw as The Quiet One
Amanda DeBoer Bartlett as The Queens Girl
Liz Pearse as The Immortal One
Kayleigh Butcher as The Sad One

Produced by Paul Pinto and Quince
Recorded and mixed by Tom Hamilton, NYC
Mastered by Murat Çolak at GERYON, NYC

Album artwork by Amanda DeBoer Bartlett and Paul Pinto
Featuring photographs by Artūras Kokorevas and Mo Eid