Chiara Quartet
Chiara String Quartet - Blodgett Artists-in-Residence, Harvard University - Four Free Concerts in 2009-2010
October 30, 2009
Harvard Box Office (1350 Massachusetts Ave.) beginning October 16 for the first concert.
Friday, October 30, 2009 at 8pm
Wednesday, December 2, 2009 at 8pm
Friday, February 12, 2010 at 8pm
Friday, April 9, 2010 at 8pm
John Knowles Paine Concert Hall
Harvard University Campus | Cambridge, MA
Admission is FREE but passes are required, available at the
More information about the Chiara Quartet: www.chiaraquartet.com
Cambridge, MA – The Chiara Quartet (Rebecca Fischer and Julie Yoon, violins, Jonah Sirota, viola and Gregory Beaver, cello) will begin their second year as the Blodgett Artists-in-Residence at Harvard University this fall, a post they will hold through 2011. During the residency the quartet will continue to work directly with Harvard students, providing lessons, coachings, and readings of student compositions, in addition to giving four FREE public concerts at Harvard's Paine Recital Hall (1 Oxford Street) at 8pm on Friday, October 30, 2009; Wednesday, December 3, 2009; Friday, February 12, 2010; and Friday, April 9, 2010. The Chiara Quartet's performances have been described as "luminous," "searing," (New York Times) "soulful," "biting," and possessing a "potent collective force" (Strings Magazine).
On Friday, October 30, 2009, the Chiara will present a concert with guest artist Roger Tapping, viola. The program includes Prokofiev's String Quartet No. 1, Webern's Five Movements for String Quartet, and Brahms' Viola Quintet in G Major, Op. 111 (with Mr. Tapping). The quartet will also present the world premiere of Ulrich Kreppein's Second String Quartet. Mr. Kreppein is a Ph.D. candidate in Composition at Harvard and is the 2009 Blodgett Student Composition Contest winner. At just 30 years old, the German native has already won a number of awards and his music has been performed at the Berliner Philharmonie and Carnegie Hall, as well as in Moscow, Düsseldorf, and Munich. Acclaimed violist Roger Tapping was a member of the Takács Quartet for ten years, and is currently on the faculties of The New England Conservatory, The Longy School, and The Boston Conservatory.
The 2009-2010 concert season also marks the beginning of the Chiara Quartet's two-year Beethoven cycle, during which they will perform all sixteen of Beethoven's string quartets. The quartet begins this ambitious journey at Harvard on Wednesday, December 2, 2009, performing Beethoven's String Quartet in F Major, Op. 135, String Quartet in C Minor, Op. 18 No. 4, and String Quartet in F Major, Op. 59 No. 1. The quartet will present two more all-Beethoven concerts at Harvard on February 12 and April 19, and will complete the cycle during the 2010-2011 concert season.
About the Chiara Quartet: Playing "Chamber Music in Any Chamber," the Chiara String Quartet (Rebecca Fischer, Julie Yoon violin; Jonah Sirota, viola; Gregory Beaver, cello) reaches from the concert hall into clubs, bars and galleries, expanding the places to hear live classical music while returning chamber music to its roots in intimate spaces. Described by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer as "vastly talented, vastly resourceful, and vastly committed to the music of their time," the Chiara is also continually finding new meaning within pieces from the well-established quartet canon.
The Chiara Quartet are Blodgett Artists-in-Residence at Harvard University in addition to their ongoing artist residency at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Awarded the Guarneri Quartet Residency Award for artistic excellence by Chamber Music America, the Quartet's other honors include a top prize at the Paolo Borciani International Competition, winning the Astral Artistic Services National Audition, and winning First Prize at the Fischoff Chamber Music Competition.
Alongside performances in major concert halls such as Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall, Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall, Philadelphia's Kimmel Center, and Harris Hall at the Aspen Music Festival, the Chiara devotes a portion of its performance season to concerts in non-classical venues including Galapagos Art Space in New York, The Tractor Tavern in Seattle, Avant Garden in Houston, and the Hideout in Chicago, among many others. Recent highlights of the Chiara Quartet's international performances include the American Academy in Rome, a critically-acclaimed eight-city tour of Sweden with clarinetist Håkan Rosengren, and a performance of Steve Reich's Different Trains in Munich at the storied Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität.
The 2009-2010 season is the first year in the Chiara Quartet's two-year Beethoven cycle, during which they will perform all sixteen of Beethoven's string quartets. In keeping with their commitment to bring classical music to uncommon places, the quartet will perform "Beethoven in Bars" at clubs throughout the country, featuring Beethoven's music with new works by young composers Thierry Tiedrow, Lauren Loiacono and Matthew Ricketts. The Chiara Quartet will also make its debut at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC; at the Philadelphia Museum of Art presented by the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society; and on the new Subway Series, a concert series that takes the Chiara to three of New York City's boroughs. Additional performances will take the Quartet across the country, for performances in states including Kansas, Nebraska, North Carolina, Maryland, Texas, and Connecticut.
Recent collaborators of the Chiara Quartet include Joel Krosnick, Roger Tapping, Todd Palmer, Simone Dinnerstein, Norman Fischer, and Paul Katz, as well as members of the Orion, Ying, Cavani, and Pacifica Quartets. The ensemble has premiered works by Gabriela Lena Frank, Jefferson Friedman, Michael Wittgraf, Randall Snyder, and Nico Muhly, among others.
The Chiara discography includes the Mozart and Brahms clarinet quintets with Håkan Rosengren for SMS Classical, and the world premiere recordings of Robert Sirota's Triptych and Gabriela Lena Frank's Leyendas: An Andean Walkabout for the Quartet's own New Voice Singles label. In 2007 the Chiara recorded Jefferson Friedman's Second and Third Quartets, and they are currently at work recording the complete string quartets of Brahms for SMS Classical.
The Chiara Quartet has been artists-in-residence at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln since 2005. In the summer, they are in residence at Greenwood Music Camp as well as the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's Chamber Music Institute. The Chiara trained and taught at The Juilliard School, mentoring for two years with the Juilliard Quartet, as recipients of the Lisa Arnhold Quartet Residency from 2003-2005.
Chiara (key-ARE-uh) is an Italian word, meaning "clear, pure, or light." More information about the Chiara Quartet can be found online at www.chiaraquartet.net, on MySpace at www.myspace.com/chiarastringquartet and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/chiarastringquartet.
THE BLODGETT ARTISTS IN RESIDENCE PROGRAM: 25th Year Anniversary
The Blodgett Artist-in-Residence program, made possible through a gift from Mr. and Mrs. John W. Blodgett, Jr., has been at Harvard for 25 years. The program provides for distinguished artists and ensembles to spend time at the Harvard University Department of Music and also invites artists to lecture and perform in a variety of musical disciplines. Recent Blodgett Distinguished Artists and Chamber Music ensembles have included the Mendelssohn String Quartet, Ying Quartet, Neba Solo (Mali), Greg Osby (jazz), Jean Claude Risset (IRCAM), and Sir Harrison Birtwistle.
Concert Details:
Friday, October 30, 2009 at 8pm; with guest artist violist Roger Tapping
Prokofiev: String Quartet No. 1; Webern: Five Movements for String Quartet; Brahms: Viola Quintet in G Major, Op. 111; Ulrich Kreppein: Second String Quartet (world premiere, Blodgett Student Composition Contest)
Wednesday, December 2, 2009 at 8pm
Beethoven Quartet Cycle: Part 1, Concert 1
String Quartet in F Major, Op. 135; String Quartet in C Minor, Op. 18 No. 4; String Quartet in F Major, Op. 59 No. 1
Friday, February 12, 2010 at 8pm
Beethoven Quartet Cycle: Part 1, Concert 2
String Quartet in D Major, Op. 18 No. 3; String Quartet in A Minor, Op. 132; String Quartet in C Major, Op. 59 No. 3
Friday, April 9, 2009 at 8pm
String Quartet in F Major, Op. 18 No. 1; String Quartet in F Minor, Op. 95; String Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 127
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