New Yorkers: come here the Chiara Quartet at Alice Tully Hall

This coming Tuesday, April 26 at 8 PM, the Chiara String Quartet will perform at Alice Tully Hall in New York as our farewell to the Juilliard School's Lisa Arnhold Residency. The concert is free, but tickets are required. The box office at Juilliard (212) 799-5000 x2 is where to go.

If you don't have a ticket and they tell you that the tickets are sold out, that is hogwash, just show up at the door and you will get in. Last year it was "sold out" and there were about 150 empty seats in the hall.

We are performing Mozart's K. 575 Quartet in D Major, a world premiere of Jefferson Friedman's Third Quartet, and Brahms's Op. 51. No. 1 Quartet in C Minor.

Mozart's K. 575 is one of the quartet's that Mozart wrote for the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm II, and so features the cello in some exquisite melodic writing. In fact, the distribution of melodies around the quartet is nearly as democratic as it gets.

Friedman's third quartet was written after he returned from Rome, where he spent a year as the recipient of the American Academy's Rome Prize. The work is in 3 movements, Introduction, Act, and Epilogue, and is truly epic. This work also features the cellist in some eyebrow-raising virtuousity, including stratospheric playing and the use of two bows to draw a complete four-note chord out of the instrument. This premiere is not to be missed.

The Brahms C Minor Quartet is one of the darkest, moodiest quartets in the repertoire. Combining a restless quality with longing for beauty and better times, it will grab you by the throat and make you listen.