The Avalon String Quartet will be performing Thursday and Friday, Oct. 28-29, at 7:30 p.m. in the Madsen Recital Hall at Brigham Young University.
Tickets are available through byuarts.com or by visiting the Fine Arts Ticket Office, (801) 422-4322. Tickets range from $6 to $12. This event is also part of the BYU Performing Arts and artsPASS season ticket packages.
In Thursday’s performance, the quartet will be playing works by Igor Stravinsky, Ethan Wickman and Gabriela Lena Frank, as well as “Rhapsody” by BYU’s Neil Thornock. On Friday they will be performing pieces by Giacomo Puccini, Benjamin Britten, Tchaikovsky and Mozart. The group will be assisted by BYU School of Music faculty member Claudine Bigelow.
According to Thornock, the title of his work refers to the structure of the work, constantly shifting from one idea to the next, in much the same fashion as the great Romantic rhapsodies. “As the work progresses, the slow sections return slower, and the fast sections return more vigorously — the intensity of prayer, suffering, joy, fallibility, incompletion and ecstasy, circling and cycling,” he said.
The quartet — comprised of Blaise Magniere, violin; Marie Wang, violin; Anthony Devroye, viola; and Cheng-Hou Lee, cello — was formed in 1995. Since then, they have performed in Alice Tully Hall in New York, Carnegie Hall, the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., Wigmore Hall and Herculessaal in Munich. They have also won first prize at the ARD Competition in Munich and the Concert Artists Guild Competition in New York.
The quartet has taught classes at the Interlochen Quartet Institute, Madeline Island Music Camp, Icicle Creek Music Festival, the Britten-Pears School in England and The Juilliard School. The quartet also works with school districts in Los Angeles and Chicago, at the Center for Abused Children in Hartford, as well as with the Music for Youth Organization in Connecticut.
For more information, contact Ken Crossley at (801) 422-9348 or e-mail ken_crossley@byu.edu.
Writer: Brandon Garrett
