Chamber Music Yellow Springs2011 - 2012 Season
Minneapolis Guitar Quartet
February 5, 2012 7:30 pm
With the passion, style, and musical sophistication borrowing from the best chamber music and string quartet traditions, the Minneapolis Guitar Quartet has successfully made its case as one of the world's leading guitar ensembles since its founding in 1986. "Flawless, musical and witty" (Classical Guitar Magazine, England), the MGQ has performed throughout the United States both in recital and with orchestra, balancing a dizzying array of first-rate repertoire ranging from Renaissance and Baroque to Spanish, Latin American and Romantic, to highly imaginative existing and newly commissioned contemporary works.
Cutting-edge composer/performer Daniel Bernard Roumain, one of the more than 20 composers commissioned by the MGQ, calls the group "more than a guitar quartet, more than superb musicians, and more than a great chamber group. They are ambassadors of sound, style, and substance."
Jonannes Quartet
February 26, 2012 7:30 pm
"The Johannes String Quartet, comprised of four impressively gifted instrumentalists in their own right, have come together to form one of the great chamber music groups of our time. They play with technical polish, with deep musical understanding, and with uncommon inspiration. The Johannes is all I could ever dream of in a string quartet." Arnold Steinhardt, Guarneri Quartet
The Johannes brings together the first American to win the Paganini Violin Competition in 24 years, Soovin Kim; a Concert Artists Guild Competition winner, Jessica Lee; the Principal violist of the Philadelphia Orchestra, C.J. Chang; and the Principal cellist of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Peter Stumpf. Their collaboration was forged at the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont, and shaped and mentored by the Guarneri String Quartet whose style was influenced by the Budapest String Quartet decades before. They are continuing the legacy of excellence. In addition to its recent broadcasts on Performance Today and St. Paul Sunday and a triumphant Carnegie Hall debut, the Johannes has had great successes with audiences and critics alike in Chicago, Philadelphia and Washington DC, among others.
They will perform works by Mozart, Schumann, and Respighi.
Harlem Quartet
March 18, 2012 7:30 pm
The Harlem Quartet, praised for its "panache" by The New York Times, is currently the resident ensemble in the New England Conservatory of Music's Professional String Quartet Program. Its mission is to advance diversity in classical music while engaging young and new audiences through the discovery and presentation of varied repertoire, highlighting works by minority composers.
The quartet opened its 2009-10 season returning as featured soloists on the national Sphinx Chamber Orchestra Tour, making thirteen stops coast-to-coast including Carnegie Hall, Eastman School of Music, Oberlin College, and Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts. In December it played two performances at the White House for guests of President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama, and made an appearance Christmas morning on NBC's Today Show. In 2009 the quartet also performed by invitation with Itzhak Perlman at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and made its London debut performing at the residence of the US ambassador to the UK. Throughout the season the quartet will collaborate with seasoned artists such as Carter Brey, Yehuda Hanani and Paul Freeman and the Chicago Sinfonietta, performing Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante, Brahms's Dand orchestra.
Chamber Music Yellow Springs
Annual Competition
Congratulations to the Aeolus String Quartet!
The Aeolus String Quartet is the winner of the 2011
CMYS Annual Competition.
The Aeolus String Quartet, Nicholas Tavani, violin, Rachel Shapiro, violin, Gregory Luce, viola, and Alan Richardson, cello, performed Mendelssohn: String Quartet in A Minor Op.13 and Bartok: String Quartet No. 4.
The Voxare String Quartet of New York City was the runner up in the 2011 Annual Competition.
Voxare, Emily Ondracek, violin, Galina Zhdanova, violin, Adrian Daurov, cello, and Erik Peterson, viola performed Aleksandra Vrebalov: Pannonia Boundless (1998) (b. Novi Sad, Yugoslavia (Serbia), 1970); Haydn: Quartet Op. 20 No. 2; Shostakovich: Quartet No. 3.