February 2, 2011
Chiara String Quartet to perform as part of World Series Feb. 8
The Chiara String Quartet will perform at 8 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 8, in Meany Hall. The quartet currently has residencies at both Harvard University and the University of Nebraska at Lincoln.
The Chiara String Quartet.
At the concert they will be giving the world premiere of Daniel Otts new piece, String Quartet No. 2, paired with two pieces by Beethoven — String Quartet in B-flat Major, Op. 18, No. 6, and String Quartet in B-flat Major, Op. 130 with the Grosse Fugue, Op. 133.
Chiara (key-ARE-uh) is an Italian word, meaning “clear, pure, or light.” The quartet 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.
Celebrating its 10th anniversary season this year, the quartet has commissioned and premiered new music for string quartet since its inception. Daniel Ott’s piece is part of the Chiara Quartet’s innovative Creator/Curator project, which commissions works for string quartet from young composers and asks them to curate a program surrounding the piece. Otts curated program will be performed in New York later this year.
Of the new piece, Ott said, “My String Quartet No. 2, composed between the summer of 2010 and the earliest days of 2011, deals to varying degrees with feelings of loss. The two Odes within the piece are each dedicated to a composer who experienced the loss of a child: Ode 1 to Franz Liszt, whose son Daniel died in 1859 at the age of 20; and Ode 2 to Gustav Mahler, whose daughter Maria died in 1907 at the age of 4. By sheer coincidence, 2011 marks important anniversary years in these composers lives – Liszt was born in 1811, Mahler died in 1911.”
Tickets for the concert are $34 ($20 for students). They may be purchased by phone at 206-543-4880, online, or in person at the UW Arts Ticket Office.
