When: Friday, April 28, 2023 at 5:30 PM
Venue: St. Peter’s Episcopal Church
801 Atlantic Avenue – Fernandina Beach, FL –  Directions…

The program will be followed by a reception in the Courtyard of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church.

Artists: Ilmar Gavilán, violin; Melissa White, violin; Jaime Amador, viola; Felix Umansky, cello

Praised for its “panache” by The New York Times, Harlem Quartet has also been hailed in the Cincinnati Enquirer for “bringing a new attitude to classical music, one that is fresh, bracing and intelligent.” Jazz at Lincoln Center woodwind virtuoso Ted Nash declared in a 2018 Playbill article, “Harlem Quartet is one of the greatest string quartets I have ever heard. They can play anything.” Since its public debut at Carnegie Hall in 2006, the ensemble has thrilled audiences and students throughout the U.S. as well as in the U.K., France, Belgium, Brazil, Panama, Canada, Venezuela, Japan, Ethiopia, and South Africa.

This past April, the Harlem Quartet joined the Charleston Symphony for the world premiere performance of Edward Hart’s “A Charleston Concerto,” commemorating the city’s 350th anniversary. Other 2022 highlights included a March concert at the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington, DC and an April date at the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center at the University of Notre Dame. The 2021-22 season also saw a collaboration with the Catalyst Quartet at the Chamber Music Society of Detroit and engagements with Carnegie Hall Citywide and the Morgan Library in New York City, as well as appearances with chamber music societies in Little Rock, Raleigh, Lewes (DE) and Syracuse, and a partnership with Cuban pianist-composer Aldo López-Gavilán in concerts at the Phoenix Chamber Music Society, the Ensemble Music Society of Indianapolis, Nebraska’s Lincoln Friends of Chamber Music, and Virginia’s Shenandoah Conservatory.

The quartet’s mission is to advance diversity in classical music, engaging young and new audiences through the discovery and presentation of varied repertoire that includes works by composers of color. Passion for this work has made the quartet a leading ensemble in both educational and community engagement activities.
Recent news on the education/outreach front for Harlem Quartet includes a July appointment as Kaufman Center Artists-in-Residence for the 2022-2023 season. In 2021 the quartet began two other institutional affiliations: as the inaugural Grissom Artist in Residence at Centre College in Danville, Kentucky, and as Quartet-in-Residence at the John J. Cali School of Music at Montclair State University in northeastern New Jersey. The ensemble has also maintained, since 2018, a residency with London’s Royal College of Music.

Harlem Quartet was founded in 2006 by the Sphinx Organization, a national nonprofit dedicated to building diversity in classical music and providing access to music education in underserved communities.

More…

Click here for the AICMF 22nd Season Schedule with date, time, and, venue details.