Avalon String Quartet launches concert year Oct. 26 at NIU
The Avalon String Quartet will begin its concert year by performing one work from each period of the complete string quartets of Beethoven at 8 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 26, in Boutell Memorial Concert Hall, 400 Lucinda Ave. on the campus of Northern Illinois University in DeKalb. The Avalon will begin with Quartet in D-Major, Op. 18, No. 3, followed by Quartet in F-minor, Op. 95 “Serioso,” and Quartet in F-major, Op. 135, No. 16. The concert is free and open to the public.
The members of the Avalon Quartet are Blaise Magniere, first violin; Richard O. Ryan Endowed Chair in Violin; Marie Wang, second violin; Anthony Devroye, viola; and Cheng-Hou Lee, cello. The members of the Avalon Quartet teach applied lessons and coach chamber music, and are active in their performance career bringing attention to the NIU School of Music from the concert stage and in other outreach activities. They annually perform a number of concerts on campus and on a concert series produced by NIU at Symphony Center in Chicago.
The Avalon quartet was founded in 1995, held residencies at Northern Illinois University and the Hartt School, and prior to their appointment at NIU in 2007 was the faculty quartet-in-residence at the Indiana University-South Bend Raclin School of the Arts for four years.
The quartet garnered attention as prize winners in major competitions including the Grand Prize at the 1998 Fischoff Competition, First Prize in the 1999 Concert Artist Guild competition, and the highest prize awarded at the 2000 ARD Munich Competition. The quartet also received awards at the 1998 Banff and 1999 Melbourne competitions. Their debut CD, “Dawn to Dusk,” was awarded the 2002 Chamber Music America/WQXR Record Award. The Avalon Quartet has performed in numerous major venues including Carnegie-Weill Recital Hall, New York’s Merkin Hall, the Gilmore Keyboard Festival, the Auditorium du Louvre in Paris, the Music Alp Festival in Seoul, Korea, London’s Wigmore Hall, Herculessal in Munich, and the Ravinia Festival.
For more information, contact Lynn Slater at lslater@niu.edu in the School of Music at (815) 753-1546. If you are unable to attend, this concert will be live-streamed on the webpage. Go to the NIU School of Music website, www.niu.edu/music. Click on “Live HD webcasts.”