Award-winning Jasper String Quartet to perform at Coastal Concerts March 2
Following a sold-out concert in early February, Coastal Concerts will present its second matinee of the season at 2 p.m., Saturday, March 2, as the Jasper String Quartet makes its Lewes debut. Winner of the 2012 Cleveland Quartet Award and numerous other top prizes, this youthful foursome has been hailed by The New York Times as powerful and by The Strad magazine as “sonically delightful and expressively compelling.” They play with “sparkling vitality and great verve,” according to the Classical Voice of North Carolina.
Consisting of first violinist J Freivogel, cellist Rachel Henderson Freivogel (husband and wife), violinist Sae Chonabayashi and violist Sam Quintal, the quartet holds ensemble-in-residence positions at Oberlin Conservatory of Music and Classic Chamber Concerts in Naples, Fla. Noted for their programming smarts and magnetic performances, these musicians are rapidly making quite a name for themselves. Theirs is definitely an ensemble on the rise.
The players will begin the afternoon by offering Beethoven’s “String Quartet No. 4 in C Minor, Op. 18,” and will follow with “Sarabande” by contemporary American composer Aaron Jay Kernis from his Pulitzer Prize-winning second quartet. One effect of pairing these two pieces will be to show how a modern composer can find inspiration in the structures and dance forms used by such older masters as Beethoven and Bach. What results is a compelling new musical statement.
The second half of the program will be devoted to one work by one composer. Béla Bartók’s string quartets are often cited as the finest since Beethoven’s, and the Jaspers will perform this 20th century master’s fifth quartet, which premiered at the Library of Congress in 1935. It is arguably the composer’s most popular and a worthy successor to the towering masterworks Beethoven created in this genre more than a century before.
The concert will take place in Bethel United Methodist Church Hall (handicapped accessible), Fourth and Market streets, Lewes. Individual tickets are $25. Ages 10-18, as well as one adult per youth, will be admitted free.
For tickets, visit www.coastalconcerts.org or call 888-212-6458. Purchases can also be made in person at the door on the afternoon of the concert (all forms of payment) or in advance (cash only) at the Lewes Chamber of Commerce and Lewes Gourmet/Puzzles on Front Street.
Coastal Concerts is a nonprofit organization promoting classical music appreciation in the central Delmarva region. Programs are made possible, in part, by a grant from the Delaware Division of the Arts, a state agency dedicated to nurturing and supporting the arts in Delaware.
