FRY STREET QUARTETUNIQUE VISION – REPERTOIRE – SPECIAL PROJECTS

FRY STREET QUARTET

Jonathan Wentworth Associates, Ltd.301.277.8205 • mjws@Jwentworth.comwww.Jwentworth.com

This remarkable quartet – hailed as “a triumph of ensemble playing” by the New York Times – is a multi-faceted ensemble taking chamber music in new directions. The Fry Street Quartet tours music of the masters as well as exciting original works from visionary composers of our time. The Fry Street Quartet has perfected a “blend of technical precision and scorching spontaneity” (Strad). Since securing the Grand Prize at the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, the quartet has reached audiences from Carnegie Hall to London, and Sarajevo to Jerusalem, exploring the medium of the string quartet and its life-affirming potential with “profound understanding…depth of expression, and stunning technical astuteness” (Deseret Morning News).

With a discography that includes a wide range of works from Haydn and Beethoven to Stravinsky, Janacek and Rorem, the quartet is known for being, “Equally at home in the classic repertoire of Mozart and Beethoven or contemporary music,” (Palm Beach Daily News).

In addition to collaborations with acclaimed instrumentalists (including Joseph Kalichstein, Wu Han, Paul Katz, Donald Weilerstein, Misha Dichter, Andres Cardenes and Roger Tapping, among others), the Fry Street Quartet has commissioned and toured new works by a wide range of composers. Pandemonium by Brazilian composer Clarice Assad received its Fry Street premiere with the San Jose Chamber Orchestra; Michael Ellison’s Fiddlin’ was co-commissioned by the Arizona Friends of Chamber Music Series and the Salt Lake City based NOVA series; Laura Kaminsky’s Rising Tide was commissioned especially for the quartet’s global sustainability initiative, The Crossroads Project, toured with projections of paintings created for the project by artist Rebecca Allan, talks by physicist Dr. Robert Davies and photographs by acclaimed environmental photographer Garth Lenz. The quartet’s 2014-2015 season includes its premiere of Kaminsky’s new opera, As One with soprano Sasha Cooke and baritone Kelly Markgraff at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and a new work by Libby Larsen is commissioned for the 2015-2016 season.

The quartet’s significant touring history includes performances at major venues, festivals, and for distinguished series such as Carnegie Hall and the Schneider Series at the New School in New York, the Jewel Box series in Chicago, Chamber Music Columbus, the Kravis Center in West Palm Beach, the DiBartolo Performing Arts Center at Notre Dame, the Theosophical Society in London, and the Mozart Gemeinde Klagenfurt in Austria.

The Fry Street Quartet was founded in Chicago in 1997 under the mentorship of Marc Johnson, cellist of the Vermeer Quartet. Cultivating authentic and creative artistic voices alongside collaborative skills through chamber music is central to the quartet’s teaching.

Avid communicators the Fry Street Quartet offers extensive outreach while on tour, and is pleased to hold the Endowed String Quartet Residency at the Caine College of the Arts at Utah State University.

And because you were wondering…“Fry Street” was the location of the quartet’s first rehearsal space in the Chicago neighborhood once ruled by Al Capone.

“The robust, young Fry Street Quartet was a triumph of ensemble playing.” The New York Times

“[The quartet] inhabited the works, playing with a unified sense of articulation, blend and knowledge of the music’s dramatic keystones, nuanced subtleties and thrilling climaxes.” The Salt Lake Tribune

“The Fry Street Quartet was presented in a debut recital that spoke of precision, preparation, excitement, profound heritage, and ultimate satisfaction. This exaltation of individually superb instrumentalists showed what riches are to be had through the conjunction of forces in unity.” The New York Concert Review

“Fry Street’s performance contained elegance and that wonderful chemistry that makes chamber music magical. They have a combination of musical maturity and charisma. The Fry Street Quartet has a capacity for both a lot of energy and also a lot of poetry.” The South Bend Tribune

“The Fry Street’s performance was electric, holding the audience in rapt attention at every moment.the group filled the score with an understanding and emotion rarely seen in performers so young.”The Yellow Springs News

“….the FSQ captured the transcendent beauty of the music with its expressive and poetic reading. They brought spirituality to their interpretation and made it a profoundly moving and utterly spellbinding experience that left the audience enthralled by its eloquence.”The Deseret News

Front Photo Credit: Andrew McAllister; Back Photo Credit: Mary Kay Gaydos