Our 2007/2008 Season
Sunday - 6 April 2008 - 3:00 pm
Miami String Quartet
Ivan Chan, violin
Cathy Meng Robinson, violin
Yu Jin, viola
Keith Robinson, cello
First violinist Ivan Chan has sustained an injury to his arm and therefore violinist Erin Keefe will join the other members of the Miami String Quartet when they perform in concert on April 6, 2008. Please read the change in program on the Program Page.
Erin Keefe
Praised in the New York Times as having "everything one wants in a quartet: a rich, precisely balanced sound, a broad coloristic palette, real unity of interpretive purpose and seemingly unflagging energy," the Miami String Quartet has quickly established its place among the most widely respected quartets in America. Their diversity in programming, poise in performance, keen sense of ensemble and impeccable musicality has made the Miami String Quartet one of the most sought after quartets in chamber music today.
In the spring of 2003, the Miami Quartet was named visiting Quartet in Residence at the Hartt School in Hartford, CT. In the fall of 2004, the Miami Quartet began as faculty members of Kent State University in Ohio, where the quartet serves as Quartet in Residence. Winners of the Cleveland Quartet Award presented by Chamber Music America, the Miami String Quartet has served as Quartet in Residence at Florida International University and was also the resident ensemble of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center's "Chamber Music Society Two" from 1999-2001.
The Miami String Quartet has appeared extensively throughout the United States and Europe. Highlights of recent seasons include performances in New York at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall, engagements in Boston, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, New Orleans, San Francisco, Seattle, St. Paul, and its own concert series in Palm Beach, Florida. International highlights include appearances in Bern, Cologne, Istanbul, Lausanne, Montreal, Rio de Janeiro, Hong Kong, Taipei and Paris. The Quartet has recently toured with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and they appear annually with the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society. In 2002 the Miami String Quartet made its debut at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam as well as at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.
The Miami String Quartet is in demand at many of the country's great festivals. For the last several years, the Quartet has served as resident ensemble at the Kent/Blossom Music Festival in Ohio, and has appeared at Chamber Music Northwest, Mostly Mozart, Ravinia, Rutgers Summerfest, Music from Angel Fire, Virginia Arts Festival - where it is the resident ensemble - and at the festivals of La Jolla, Santa Fe, and Pensacola. In addition to these, the MSQ performed at the 2004 Brevard Festival.
The ensemble's interest in new music has led to many commissions and premieres. In March 2000, the players gave the world premiere of Augusta Reed Thomas' Invocations. In the 1997-98 season, the Quartet presented the American premieres of Quartet Nos. 1 and 2 by Peteris Vasks, which met with enormous acclaim and were subsequently recorded; Vasks' Quartet No. 3 has since become a signature piece for the ensemble. Among other new music highlights are a commissioning grant from Chamber Music America for a piano quintet from Maurice Gardner, world premiere performances of the quartet Whispers of Mortality by Bruce Adolphe, a quartet by Philip Maneval, Maurice Gardner's Quartet No. 2 and Concertino as well as premieres of Robert Starer's Quartet Nos. 2 and 3, and David Baker's Summer Memories. Recent commissions include a new work by composer Annie Gosfield, commissioned by the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, a joint commissioning by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the VA Arts Festival of a new piano quintet by Bruce Adolphe, and a new work by composer Stephen Jaffe commissioned by the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society. The Miami Quartet has also performed works with symphony orchestras, such as the American Sinfonietta, the New World Symphony, and the Miami Chamber Symphony.
The Miami String Quartet's first recording of the first two quartets of Alberto Ginastera was released in 1994. Their second CD, of Saint-Saëns Quartets 1 and 2 and Faure's String Quartet, was released in the fall of 1997 on BMG Conifer. The aforementioned 1999 BMG recording of Peteris Vasks' Quartet Nos. 1, 2 and 3 garnered unqualified praise on both sides of the Atlantic.
In 1992, the Miami String Quartet became the first string quartet in a decade to win First Prize of the Concert Artists Guild New York Competition. The Miami String Quartet has also won recognition in competitions throughout the world; as laureate of the 1993 Evian Competition, 1991 London String Quartet Competition, and as the 1989 Grand Prize Winner of the Fischoff Chamber Music Competition.