$15
Wed., April 28, 2010 / 6:30 PM
Audio / Video
Gallery
About This Event
Minimum Age:
All AgesDoors Open:
6:30 PMShow Time:
7:30 PMDescription:
Program:
Steve Reich: Different Trains
Jefferson Friedman: String Quartet No. 2
Anton Webern: Five Pieces for String Quartet
The Chiara String Quartet performs for the first time at New York's West Village hot spot, (Le) Poisson Rouge in a program selected especially for this venue. Steve Reich's Grammy Award-winning 1988 work, Different Trains, written for string quartet and tape, contrasts the romantic journeys by train that Reich made as a child during World War II between the two cities where his separated parents lived (New York and Los Angeles), with the journeys by train that he may have been forced to undertake as a Jew in Europe during those same years. The recorded speech that is interspersed throughout the piece is taken from interviews with individuals in the US and in Europe leading up to, during, and immediately after World War II. Combining the sounds of steam whistles, brakes, and pistons with these voices, Different Trains is both introspective and a driving, harrowing ride.
Austrian composer Anton Webern wrote Five Pieces for String Quartet in 1909 when he was 26 years old. An ethereal set of miniature works (each piece is only a few minutes long), Five Pieces was radical not only because of Webern's use of tone rows and other then-avant-garde compositional techniques, but because of its remarkable brevity. It remains one of the most influential works in the string quartet repertoire.
Jefferson Friedman is a New York-based composer, whose music has been called "impossible to resist" by The New York Times. The Chiara Quartet will perform his String Quartet No. 2, which was written for them in 1999 and continues to be one of the group's favorite and most-performed pieces. Of a recent performance of String Quartet No. 2, Steve Smith writing in The New York Times offered this description, "The first movement opened with jagged rhythms that shifted in and out of sync; a throaty climax ushered in a somber meditation, eventually banished by the return of the fitful pulse. The free-flowing second movement was a rich, burnished fantasy; in the third movement, a rollicking dance filled with rippling trills led to a passage of ghostly yearning and a breathless finale."
Check out the Chiara Quartet performing Friedman's String Quartet No. 2: www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvigLhP2Wxc
This is a first come seated event. Seating is limited and not guaranteed; please arrive early.
Steve Reich: Different Trains
Jefferson Friedman: String Quartet No. 2
Anton Webern: Five Pieces for String Quartet
The Chiara String Quartet performs for the first time at New York's West Village hot spot, (Le) Poisson Rouge in a program selected especially for this venue. Steve Reich's Grammy Award-winning 1988 work, Different Trains, written for string quartet and tape, contrasts the romantic journeys by train that Reich made as a child during World War II between the two cities where his separated parents lived (New York and Los Angeles), with the journeys by train that he may have been forced to undertake as a Jew in Europe during those same years. The recorded speech that is interspersed throughout the piece is taken from interviews with individuals in the US and in Europe leading up to, during, and immediately after World War II. Combining the sounds of steam whistles, brakes, and pistons with these voices, Different Trains is both introspective and a driving, harrowing ride.
Austrian composer Anton Webern wrote Five Pieces for String Quartet in 1909 when he was 26 years old. An ethereal set of miniature works (each piece is only a few minutes long), Five Pieces was radical not only because of Webern's use of tone rows and other then-avant-garde compositional techniques, but because of its remarkable brevity. It remains one of the most influential works in the string quartet repertoire.
Jefferson Friedman is a New York-based composer, whose music has been called "impossible to resist" by The New York Times. The Chiara Quartet will perform his String Quartet No. 2, which was written for them in 1999 and continues to be one of the group's favorite and most-performed pieces. Of a recent performance of String Quartet No. 2, Steve Smith writing in The New York Times offered this description, "The first movement opened with jagged rhythms that shifted in and out of sync; a throaty climax ushered in a somber meditation, eventually banished by the return of the fitful pulse. The free-flowing second movement was a rich, burnished fantasy; in the third movement, a rollicking dance filled with rippling trills led to a passage of ghostly yearning and a breathless finale."
Check out the Chiara Quartet performing Friedman's String Quartet No. 2: www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvigLhP2Wxc
This is a first come seated event. Seating is limited and not guaranteed; please arrive early.
Artists
Chiara Quartet
Renowned for bringing fresh excitement to traditional string quartet repertoire as well as for creating thoroughly insightful interpretations of new music, the Chiara String Quartet (Rebecca Fischer and Julie Hye-Yung Yoon, violins; Jonah Sirota, viola; Gregory Beaver, cello) captivates and enthralls its audiences throughout the country. During 2010-2011, the Chiara is celebrating its tenth anniversary season. Over its first decade, the Chiara has established itself as among America’s most respected ensembles, lauded for its "highly virtuosic, edge-of-the-seat playing" (The Boston Globe).
The Chiara String Quartet serves as Blodgett Artists-in-Residence at Harvard University, where it is currently performing the complete cycle of Beethoven's string quartets. The Chiara's 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. Awarded the Guarneri Quartet Residency Award for artistic excellence by Chamber Music America, the Chiara Quartet has also been the recipient of grants from Meet The Composer and the Amphion Foundation.
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. The Chiara is also featured on Nadia Sirota's debut recording for New Amsterdam Records, first things first, which was included on "Best of" lists in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Time Out New York, and many more. Other recent collaborators of the quartet include Joel Krosnick, Todd Palmer, Simone Dinnerstein, Norman Fischer, and Paul Katz, as well as members of the Orion, Ying, Cavani, and Pacifica Quartets.
The Chiara String Quartet serves as Blodgett Artists-in-Residence at Harvard University, where it is currently performing the complete cycle of Beethoven's string quartets. The Chiara's 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. Awarded the Guarneri Quartet Residency Award for artistic excellence by Chamber Music America, the Chiara Quartet has also been the recipient of grants from Meet The Composer and the Amphion Foundation.
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. The Chiara is also featured on Nadia Sirota's debut recording for New Amsterdam Records, first things first, which was included on "Best of" lists in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Time Out New York, and many more. Other recent collaborators of the quartet include Joel Krosnick, Todd Palmer, Simone Dinnerstein, Norman Fischer, and Paul Katz, as well as members of the Orion, Ying, Cavani, and Pacifica Quartets.
music of Steve Reich, Jefferson Friedman, and Anton Webern