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October 15, 2009
Purdue to host Canadian chamber ensemble Afiara String Quartet
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - The award-winning Canadian chamber ensemble Afiara String Quartet will present a program featuring quintessential works by Beethoven and Mendelssohn at 7:30 p.m. Nov. 5 at the Loeb Playhouse of Purdue Stewart Center.The performance, which is presented by Purdue Convocations, also will include a poignant elegy by Puccini, along with John Zorn's seriously composed, but comically inclined "Cat o' Nine Tails."
The all-Canadian ensemble -- Valerie Li and Yuri Cho (violins), David Samuel (viola), and Adrian Fung (cello) -- is currently the Graduate Resident String Quartet at The Juilliard School in New York, where they serve as teaching assistants to the celebrated Juilliard String Quartet. Last year, the quartet was the Morrison Fellowship Quartet-in-Residence at San Francisco State University's International Center for the Arts, where the members were teaching assistants to their mentor ensemble, the Alexander String Quartet. The quartet also has worked with the American, Cavani, Emerson, Kronos, St. Lawrence, Takacs and Ying quartets.
In 2008, Afiara String Quartet won the Concert Artist Guild International Competition in New York, following a top-prize victory at the Munich ARD International Music Competition that same year. The quartet is the only Canadian ensemble to win top honors in either of these historic competitions.
Taking its name from the Spanish fiar, meaning "to trust," the Afiara String Quartet approaches chamber music as an intimate conversation between friends, prompting the "San Francisco Classical Voice" to call the group "a terrifically unified, versatile, and moving ensemble" with "a powerful, keen-edged collective sound."
Tickets are $12. Tickets are available at the Elliott Hall and Stewart Center box offices at (765) 494-3933 or (800) 914-SHOW. Tickets also are available through Ticketmaster outlets. Discounted tickets for groups of 10 or more can be ordered at (765) 496-1977.
Initiated in 1902, Purdue Convocations is among the oldest collegiate professional performing arts presenters in the United States. Each year, Convocations offers the region 30 to 40 performances of widely varying genres: Broadway-style shows, theater, dance, children's theater, world music, jazz, and chamber music, along with rock, pop, country and comedy attractions. With a vision for connecting artists and audiences in artistic dialogue and for drawing in academic discourse, Purdue Convocations aims to promote frequent exposure to and familiarity with human cultural expression in a multitude of forms and media.
Source: Abby Eddy, Purdue Convocations director of marketing, 765-494-5045, aeeddy@purdue.edu
Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; purduenews@purdue.edu
Publication-quality photos are available at https://www.purdue.edu/convocations/showPhotos.asp?ID=3
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