The Juilliard String Quartet Presents Its Annual Seminar, May 16 - 20, 2011, Featuring Eight String Quartets and Culminating in Two Free Concerts, Friday, May 20, 2011 at 3:30 and 7:30 PM in Paul Hall at Juilliard
The Afiara, Catalyst, fairway, Hausmann, Navis, PUBLIQ, Stamps, and Voxare String Quartets Have Been Selected to Participate in This Year's Seminar
The Juilliard String Quartet presents its annual seminar from May 16 – 20, 2011 open to young string quartets from around the world. This year, eight up-and-coming ensembles have been selected and will receive intensive coaching with members of the Juilliard String Quartet. Each student ensemble works with two members of the Juilliard String Quartet and has two coaching sessions a day on string quartet repertoire. Rehearsal time also is built in. During the week, the quartets get to interact with each other and talk shop. The Afiara, Catalyst, Fairway, Hausmann, Navis, PUBLIQ, Stamps, and Voxare string quartets have been selected for the seminar. The Afiara String Quartet has been Juilliard’s graduate resident quartet for the past two years, and they will be receiving Artist Diplomas later this month at Juilliard’s Commencement Ceremony. Juilliard welcomes its new graduate resident quartet, the Attacca Quartet, this fall semester.
During
the seminar week, the quartets will be coached on specific works, and this
year’s repertoire includes: Beethoven’s String Quartet Op. 95 “Serioso” and the
String Quartet in G Major, Op. 18, No. 2; Brahms’ Quartet No. 3 in B-flat
Major, Op. 67; Dvořák’s Quartet in F Major, Op. 96, “The American” and the
String Quartet Op. 106 in G Major; Haydn’s String Quartet, Op. 74, No. 3
“Rider”; Shostakovich’s String Quartet No. 3 in F Major, Op. 76; Sibelius’
String Quartet Op. 56 in D Minor, “Voces Intimae”; and Szymanowski’s String
Quartet No. 2, Op. 56. At the end of the week, best performances are selected
from this repertoire for the two free concerts on Friday, May 20, 2011 at 3:30
PM and 7:30 PM in Juilliard’s Paul
Hall (155 West 65th Street). No tickets are required for these FREE concerts. For further information, call (212)
769-7406 or go to www.juilliard.edu.
The all-Canadian Afiara String Quartet offers performances of “startling intensity” with a “powerful, keen-edged collective sound” (San Francisco Classical Voice). Winner of the 2008 Concert Artists Guild International Competition, the 2010 Young Canadian Musicians Award, top prizes at the Munich ARD International Music Competition and the Banff International String Quartet Competition, where they also took the Szekely Prize for best Beethoven performance, the Afiara balances a lively interest in new works with deep insight into core classical repertoire. This season, the Quartet gave concerts in the U.S., Canada, Europe, and South America.
The NYC-based Catalyst Quartet is comprised of top laureates and alumni of the internationally acclaimed Sphinx Competition for young black and Latino string players. The mission of the ensemble is to advance diversity in classical music and inspire new and young audiences with dynamic performances of cutting-edge repertoire by a wide range of composers. The Quartet has held residencies both domestically and abroad, and serves as principal faculty at the Sphinx Performance Academy at Oberlin College and Roosevelt University in Chicago. They are also visiting teaching artists at the Sphinx Preparatory Music Institute, hosted by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. Members of the Catalyst Quartet are Bryan Hernandez-Luch and Karla Donehew-Perez, violins; Christopher Jenkins, viola; and Karlos Rodriguez, cello.
The Fairway String Quartet, from Leawood, Kansas, met through the Heartland Music Academy’s summer chamber music festival in Kansas City and continued their studies in the Academy’s Stringendo, year-round chamber music program. They were awarded full-scholarships to Yale University’s Norfolk Chamber Music Program this summer, which will be led by the Tokyo String Quartet. Members of the Fairway Quartet are Philip Marten and Rachel Schlosberg, violins; Tanner Menees, viola; and Samuel Cho, cello.
The Hausmann Quartet’s formed in the summer of 2004 at LyricaFest in New Jersey. Praised for their charismatic playing and “marvelously rich tone”, the Quartet made their debut on the Lyrica Boston Chamber Music series and was soon named Lyrica Boston’s Young Artists in Residence. The Quartet joined San Diego State University as the 2010-2012 Joseph Fisch/Joyce Axelrod Resident String Quartet. Previously, they were recipients of the Morrison Fellowship Award in residence with the Alexander String Quartet at the International Center for the Arts, San Francisco State University. Most recently, they held a fellowship appointment at the La Jolla Music Society’s 2010 SummerFest. They have a concurrent affiliation sponsored by the LaJolla Music Society as part of the organization’s ongoing commitment to community engagement and outreach. Members of the Hausmann Quartet are Isaac Allen and Bram Goldstein, violins; Angela Choong, viola; and Yuan Zhang, cello.
The Navis Quartet, from Biala, Poland, formed in 2008 at the Academy of Music in Lodz. Members of the Navis Quartet are Aleksandra Szurgot and Grzegorz Warzecha, violins; Justyna Linowska, viola; and Adrian Cygan, cello. The Quartet has honed its musical skills under the supervision of prominent violinist, Miroslaw Lukasz Blaszczyk. The Navis Quartet has won prizes in several contests, and the musicians in the ensemble have given solo and chamber music concerts in the United States, Germany, France, Belgium, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Italy, Czech Republic, Switzerland, Turkey, Mexico, and China. They have performed at The Vatican. The members of the Quartet are scholarship holders of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland, the Adam Mickiewicz Institute, and the Mloda Polska Scholarship Program.
Through creative and interactive programming, as well as a deep commitment to audience inclusion, PUBLIQuartet, formed in 2010, injects perspective into the classical music scene. Hailing from Juilliard, Mannes College of Music, and Eastman School of Music, members Jessie Montgomery and Curtis Stewart (violins); Nick Revel (viola); and Amanda Gookin (cello), contribute a collective background in classical, jazz, world and electro acoustic performance. The PUBLIQuartet presents standard and rare music from the classical repertoire, as well as contemporary compositions and open-form improvisations that expand, explore, and extend the stylistic norms of the traditional string quartet. The PUBLIQuartet has performed in a variety of venues, from concert halls and homes, to cafes and community spaces. They frequently perform at Café Vivaldi in New York City’s West Village and have collaborated with the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), award-winning jazz composer, Erica Seguine, and internationally acclaimed concert pianist, Aksel Kolstad. This summer, PUBLIQuartet will be quartet in residence at the Deer Valley Music Festival in Utah, under the direction of Joan Tower and the Muir Quartet.
The Stamps String Quartet is comprised of four freshmen from the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music: Arianne Urban and Victor Colmenares, violin; Amanda Diaz, viola; and Christopher Young, cello. They are the first string quartet brought to the Frost School under a new scholarship program established with funding from the Stamps Foundation and the University of Miami. Ms. Diaz and Ms. Urban graduated from the New World School of the Arts in downtown Miami. Mr. Colmenares studied in his native Colombia and graduated from Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan, and Mr. Young studied at Skyline High School in Idaho Falls, Idaho and also graduated from Interlochen Arts Academy. They enrolled at Miami for both the traditional quartet experience, and for the Frost School’s musical diversity; they will be involved in jazz, rock, and hip-hop, in additional to classical. The Stamps String Quartet will perform this summer in the Orfeo Music Festival in northern Italy.
The NYC-based Voxare String Quartet formed in 2008 and has since received critical praise for its inventive programming, technical prowess, attention to details, and passionate performances. Recently making its debut at Carnegie’s Weill Hall, the Voxare Quartet is a frequent performer at Bargemusic in NYC, where the Quartet has been quartet-in-residence. The Voxare String Quartet performs works by living composers at its residency series, DIG IT! New Music, at Teachers College, Columbia University, and will have a performing residence at Dartmouth this season. Individually, Voxare members, Emily Ondracek-Peterson and Galina Zhdanova (violins), Erik Peterson (viola), and Adrian Daurov (cello) have performed as soloists with orchestras such as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and orchestrally with the Cleveland Orchestra, Milwaukee Symphony, and St. Petersburg Philharmonic. The four musicians have amassed a number of prizes at international competitions. Voxare takes responsibility in presenting and encouraging interest in contemporary music and often works with leading composers, such as Pulitzer Prize-winning composers Ned Rorem and David Del Tredici. Voxare is not afraid to break down the boundaries of classical music; they have made and performed their own transcriptions of popular and rock music and often perform in alternative concert venues, presenting innovative concerts focusing on unique and accessible presentations of contemporary chamber music while assimilating classical standards and popular music. They can be heard on soundtracks of several films shown at festivals such as Sundance and Tribeca.
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