University of Florida Performing Arts

Program
Quartet in D Major, Op. 18, No. 3
Quartet in C Major, Op. 59, No. 3 (Hero)
Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 127

This performance is a part of a two-season Beethoven Cycle.  Begun during the 2007-08 Season, the Beethoven Cycle is a series of concerts that will present some of the best musicians in the world performing Beethoven’s string quartets. The American String Quartet will perform Sunday, October 12 and the Ebène Quartet will perform Sunday, March 22.

About the Ying Quartet
Now in its second decade, the Ying Quartet continues to develop ways of making artistic and creative expression an essential part of everyday life. Their current projects in this direction include: an innovative visiting residency at Symphony Space in New York City, linking music with poetry; a project with Da Camera of Houston to bring chamber music into the lives of Houston working people; and an exploration, on tour, with the Turtle Island Quartet of jazz, improvisation, and the classical string quartet tradition.

Natives of Chicago, the Ying siblings began their career as an ensemble in 1992 in the farm town of Jesup, Iowa (population 2,000) as the first recipients of a National Endowment for the Arts grant to support chamber music in rural America. The Ying Quartet participated fully in the community, performing on countless occasions for audiences of six to 600 people in a residency so successful that it was widely chronicled in both the national and international media, including features in the New York Times and on CBS Sunday Morning.

While the Ying Quartet was in Jesup, its exceptional musical qualities earned it the 1993 Naumburg Chamber Music Award. In the years since, the Yings have established an international reputation for excellence in performance with appearances in virtually every major American city; at numerous festivals including Tanglewood, Aspen, and San Miguel; and in Europe, Canada, Mexico, Australia, Japan, and Taiwan. The Yings’ enthusiasm for performing in diverse settings has led to concerts in Carnegie Hall, the White House, hospitals, and juvenile prisons. Frequent musical collaborations have included such artists as Menahem Pressler, Paul Katz, Gilbert Kalish, Jon Nakamatsu, and the St. Lawrence Quartet.

In 1999, the Ying Quartet introduced LifeMusic, a multiyear commissioning project supported by the Institute for American Music, designed to produce a distinctively American string quartet repertory. A pair of works each season by established and emerging composers is featured in the Yings’ diverse performance activities. Participating composers thus far include Michael Torke, Kevin Puts, Carter Pann, Paquito D’Rivera, Daniel Kellogg, Augusta Read Thomas, Bernard Rands, and Ned Rorem.

The Ying Quartet’s most recent honor includes a Grammy Award for Best Classical Crossover Album of 2006 for their work with the Turtle Island Quartet on their album 4+Four.  As Quartet-in-Residence at Eastman, the Ying Quartet plans and directs a rigorous, sequential chamber music curriculum that integrates intensive musical instruction with training in creative presentation and communication skills, and includes practical performance opportunities throughout the greater Rochester community. The Ying Quartet has also taught at Northwestern University and at the Interlochen and Brevard Music Festivals, and since 2001, it has been the Blodgett Quartet in Residence at Harvard University.