The Fredösphere

"When I was a little kid I never liked to read, and the only way my mom could get me to read books was with the 'Choose Your Own Adventure' science fiction books," he said. "It would be, like, if you want them to invade this planet, go to page 60."

Obviously they left an impression, because they inspired the basic idea behind Jorgensen's audience-interactive quartet.

"The piece is a kind of choose-your-own-adventure string quartet about the life of a mayfly," Jorgensen said. "It starts out with the mayfly hatching out of the water, then the audience votes as the piece goes along to decide what happens to the mayfly until it dies at the end.

"There's a whole bunch of different ways the piece unfolds," he continued. "The mayfly can go to New York City, go to the opera, stay in the country, marry this other mayfly - really bizarre things."