On Friday, April 10, 2015 at 7:30pm, the Chiara String Quartet (Rebecca Fischer and Hyeyung Julie Yoon, violins; Jonah Sirota, viola; Gregory Beaver, cello) will perform the final concert of the 2014-2015 Hixson-Lied Concert Series at University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Kimball Recital Hall (11th and R Streets), featuring clarinetist Hattie Bestul, winner of the “Play with the Chiaras” auditions. The program will feature Mendelssohn Quartet no. 1, Op. 12 in E-flat Major, Shostakovich’s Quartet No. 5, and Brahms’ Clarinet Quintet in B minor. This year marks the first time that the winner of the “Play with the Chiaras Auditions,” a competitive two-round audition, will join the Chiara Quartet in a performance on the final concert of the Hixson-Lied concert series. The Chiara Quartet members are in their tenth year as Hixson-Lied Artists-in-Residence at The University of Nebraska-Lincoln Glenn Korff School of Music in the Hixson-Lied College of Fine and Performing Arts. The concert will be live webcast at http://arts.unl.edu/music/webcast/chiara-string-quartet.
Tickets: $20 (Seniors $10, Students $5). Available at the Lied Center for Performing Arts ticket office, at the door, or at 402.472.4747
Hattie Bestul is a junior music performance major studying with Dr. Diane Barger at the UNL Glenn Korff School of Music. During her time at UNL, Hattie has performed as principal clarinet of the Symphony Orchestra, Wind Ensemble, and Symphonic Band. Recent achievements include performing Michael Daugherty’s Brooklyn Bridge, IV. North with the UNL Wind Ensemble this spring under the direction of Dr. Carolyn Barber; traveling to Anaheim, CA for the 2013 National MTNA senior performance competition; and performing Franz Krommer’s Concerto for Two Clarinets Op. 91, I. Allegro with the Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestra in 2012 under the direction of Professor James Smith. In addition to her music degree, Hattie is minoring in business with an interest in expanding the culture of arts and music in communities. This goal inspires her Teaching Artist studies of which her current initiative is Beyond the Notes, a workshop she has developed and will teach at the University of Wisconsin-Madison 2015 College for Kids program.
The “Play with the Chiaras” competition was developed by the Chiara Quartet in 2007 to offer the opportunity for students enrolled in the UNL Chamber Music class to collaborate with the quartet. The competition has two rounds: a solo round, where the contestant plays two works of his/her choice; and the final/collaborative round, where the winners from the first round publicly rehearse a collaborative piece with the Chiara Quartet.
Renowned for bringing fresh excitement to traditional string quartet repertoire as well as for creating insightful interpretations of new music, the Chiara String Quartet captivates its audiences throughout the country. 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). They are currently Hixson-Lied Artists-in-Residence at the Glenn Korff School of Music at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and were the Blodgett Artists-in-Residence at Harvard University from 2008-2014.
Now in their 15th season performing together, the Chiara Quartet is moving forward by taking a cue from the past. Harkening back to a tradition that is centuries old and still common among soloists, the Chiara Quartet has adopted a new way of performing: from memory, without printed sheet music. For almost all of the Quartet’s upcoming concerts, they will be performing by heart. After spending countless hours working towards playing their repertoire from memory, they now feel that the sheet music is a distraction to the performance, instead of an aid. Of the process, the Chiara’s cellist Gregory Beaver says, “The act of performing from memory has been challenging for us. Each member must find a way to know the music inside and out. But the payback for each of us is equally rewarding, bringing us that much closer together in our music-making.” After memorizing a work, the Quartet is rewarded with deeply gratifying performances where each member feels fully present in the moment, truly performing with heart, by heart.
The Chiara's recent honors include the nomination of its recording of Jefferson Friedman’s String Quartet No. 3 for a Grammy Award in 2011 and the ASCAP/Chamber Music America Award for Adventurous Programming for the 2010-2011 season. Past awards 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, The Aaron Copland Foundation, and the Amphion Foundation.
In addition to the Chiara Quartet’s regular performances in major concert halls across the country, including Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall, Carnegie Hall, Philadelphia's Kimmel Center, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the National Gallery in Washington DC, the ensemble was one of the first string quartets to perform in alternative venues for chamber music performance. The Chiara Quartet performs innovative concerts in non-classical spaces including (le) Poisson Rouge and 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 extensive tours of China, Korea, and Sweden as well as performances at the American Academy in Rome, the Montreal Chamber Music Festival, and of Steve Reich's Different Trains in Munich.
Described by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer as “vastly talented, vastly resourceful, and vastly committed to the music of their time,” the Chiara has commissioned and premiered new works since its inception. In the 2010-11 season the Chiara produced a large-scale project in four cities called Creator/Curator, commissioning new works for string quartet by composers Nico Muhly, Huang Ruo, Daniel Ott and Gabriela Lena Frank. Each composer curated the concert on which his/her piece was premiered, choosing music that complemented and gave context. The Chiara has also commissioned works from Jefferson Friedman, Robert Sirota, Hans Tutschku, Michael Wittgraf, and Carl Voss, among others.
The complete 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 on 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 The Juilliard String Quartet, 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 Chiara Quartet is widely sought out for its innovative work in engagement with urban and rural communities of all ages throughout the United States. In 2012 the Chiara is appearing with the University Musical Society in Ann Arbor, Michigan as residents in the community, performing in unusual venues including a vacant storefront and a Toyota factory. In 2011, the Chiara was the first judge of the online string quartet competition “The Quartet Project Challenge,” an opportunity for young quartets from around the world to post performances on YouTube of new works by composer Geoffrey Hudson and receive comments from a professional quartet. In the 2011-12 season, the Chiara presented a four concert series at Matt Talbot Kitchen and Outreach, a unique organization serving the working poor and homeless in Lincoln, Nebraska.
In the summer, the Chiara Quartet 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 http://www.chiaraquartet.net and on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/chiarastringquartet.