Fry Street Quartet
This remarkable quartet - hailed as "a triumph of ensemble playing" by the New York Times - is a multi-faceted ensemble taking chamber music in new directions. Touring music of the masters as well as original works from visionary composers of our time, the Fry Street Quartet has perfected a "blend of technical precision and scorching spontaneity" (Strad). Since securing the Grand Prize at the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, the quartet has reached audiences from across the globe exploring the medium of the string quartet and its life-affirming potential with "profound understanding...depth of expression, and stunning technical astuteness" (Deseret Morning News).
The FSQ's repertoire reaches many corners of the musical spectrum, including works of Britten, Schubert, Beethoven and Bartok, as well as programs of American women composers Laura Kaminsky, Amy Beach, Joan Tower and Libby Larsen. Over the next two seasons, the Salt Lake City-based NOVA series will present the FSQ’s complete Bartok Cycle, pairing these monumental works with Haydn’s String Quartets Op. 76.
The Fry Street Quartet has commissioned and premiered new works by a wide range of composers. Pandemonium, by Brazilian composer Clarice Assad, was premiered with the San Jose Chamber Orchestra; Michael Ellison's Fiddlin' was co-commissioned by the Arizona Friends of Chamber Music Series and the Salt Lake City based NOVA series; Laura Kaminsky's Rising Tide and Libby Larsen’s Emergence were both commissioned especially for the quartet's global sustainability initiative, The Crossroads Project. In 2014, the FSQ also premiered Laura Kaminsky's chamber opera, As One, with soprano Sasha Cooke and baritone Kelly Markgraff at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
After more than 30 performances in three different countries, The Crossroads Project: Rising Tide continues to resonate with audiences. This fresh approach to communicating society’s sustainability challenges draws upon all the senses with a unique blend of science and art. The Project has been featured on the NPR program joe’s big idea, which aired during All Things Considered, as well as in publications by Yale Climate Connections, Reuters, and the New York Times. The Crossroads Project’s second chapter, Crossroads: Emergence is written for string quartet, film, and actor and furthers exploration of the topic.
The quartet's touring history includes performances at major venues, festivals, and distinguished series such as Carnegie Hall, the Schneider Series at the New School and the Brooklyn Academy of Music in NYC, the Jewel Box series in Chicago, Chamber Music Columbus, the Kravis Center in West Palm Beach, the DiBartolo Performing Arts Center at Notre Dame, the Theosophical Society in London, and the Mozart Gemeinde in Klagenfurt, Austria.
The Fry Street Quartet is pleased to hold the Dan C. and Manon Caine Russell Endowed String Quartet Residency at the Caine College of the Arts at Utah State University.
frystreetquartet.com | thecrossroadsproject.org
Click here to view Crossroads CMA article
Click here to view the Crossroads NPR article
LAURA KAMINSKY
Laura Kaminsky (b. 26 September 1956, New York) is a composer with “an ear for the new and interesting” whose works are “colorful and harmonically sharp-edged” (The New York Times) and whose “music is full of fire as well as ice, written in an idiom that contrasts dissonance and violence with tonal beauty and meditative reflection. It is strong stuff.” (American Record Guide). Social and political themes are common in her work, as is an abiding respect for and connection to the natural world. Kaminsky has received commissions, fellowships, and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, Koussevitzky Music Foundation, Opera America, Chamber Music America, BAM/Kennedy Center De Vos Institute, USArtists International, CEC ArtsLink International Partnerships, and Likhachev-Russkiy Mir Foundation, among others. She was awarded the 2015 Polish Gold Cross of Merit by the President of Poland for exemplary public service or humanitarian work. Performed internationally, her music is heard on the Albany, Bridge, CRI, Capstone, Mode, and MSR labels. Chair of the composition department at the Conservatory of Music/SUNY Purchase, she is also composer-in-residence at American Opera Projects.
photography Rebecca Allan rebeccaallan.com
LIBBY LARSEN
Libby Larsen (b. 24 December 1950, Wilmington, Delaware) is one of America’s most performed living composers. She has created a catalogue of over 400 works spanning virtually every genre from intimate vocal and chamber music to massive orchestral works and over twelve operas. Grammy Award winning and widely recorded, including over fifty CD’s of her work, she is constantly sought after for commissions and premieres by major artists, ensembles, and orchestras around the world, and has established a permanent place for her works in the concert repertory.
As a vigorous, articulate advocate for the music and musicians of our time, in 1973 Larsen co-founded the Minnesota Composers Forum, now the American Composer’s Forum, which has become an invaluable aid for composers in a transitional time for American arts. A former holder of the Papamarkou Chair at John W. Kluge Center of the Library of Congress, Larsen has also held residencies with the Minnesota Orchestra, the Charlotte Symphony and the Colorado Symphony.
photography Ann Marsden annmarsden.com
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