Courtesy photo.
SANTA BARBARA — The Santa Barbara Museum of Art (SBMA) will present the Formosa Quartet — String Quartet Chamber Music Concert at 7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 20 at SBMA’s Mary Craig Auditorium, 1130 State St., Santa Barbara,
Hailed for their talent and charm, the Formosa Quartet has sustained a career of innovation, storytelling, and advocacy since winning the 1st Prize and Amadeus Prize at the Wigmore Hall International String Quartet Competition. This performance will include J.S. Bach: Four Contrapuncti from “The Art of Fugue,” a Formosa Quartet Set, Schubert: String Quartet No. 13 in A minorand D. 804 “Rosamunde.”
The Formosa Quartet Set is an assortment of shorts from the quartet’s collection of folk, pop, jazz, and poetry arrangements. Curated especially for each concert, the Set is like a flight of desserts after a main course, offering a chance for audiences to “let their hair down,” tap their toes, and enjoy the string quartet medium in somewhat less-conventional contexts.
Location: SBMA’s Mary Craig Auditorium, 1130 State Street, Santa Barbara
$20 SBMA Members/$25 Non-Members
Get tickets at tickets.sbma.net
More about the Formosa Quartet
Winners of the First Prize and Amadeus Prize at the Wigmore Hall International String Quartet Competition, the FORMOSA QUARTET has been hailed as “spellbinding” (The Strad) and “remarkably fine” (Gramophone), and has given critically acclaimed performances at the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian, the Da Camera Society of Los Angeles, the Chicago Cultural Center, the Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center, the National Concert Hall in Taipei, Wigmore Hall in London, die Glocke Bremen, and the Kammermusiksaal at the Berliner Philharmonie.
For two decades and counting, the Formosa Quartet has forged uncharted musical terrain in performances that go “beyond the beautiful and into the territory of unexpectedly thrilling… like shots of pure espresso” (MUSO Magazine). The founding members’ interest in championing Taiwanese music and Indigenous cultures has since expanded to include the exploration of the rich folk traditions and heritages found in America today. Whether in its uncompromisingly exploratory approach to the standard quartet literature; its socioculturally probing American Mirror Project; or its unique Sets curated from its collection of folk, pop, jazz, and poetry arrangements, the Formosa Quartet is committed to an insatiable search for the fresh and new in string quartet expression.
…The members of the Formosa Quartet – Jasmine Lin, David Bernat, Matthew Cohen, and Deborah Pae – have established themselves as leading solo, chamber, and orchestral musicians. With degrees from the Juilliard School, Curtis Institute of Music, New England Conservatory, Colburn Conservatory, and the Cleveland Institute of Music, they have performed in major venues throughout the United States, Asia, and Europe and have been top prizewinners in prestigious competitions such as the Paganini, Primrose, Fischoff, and Naumburg competitions. As chamber musicians, they have appeared regularly at the Marlboro, Kingston, Santa Fe, and Ravinia festivals, as well as at Lincoln Center, La Jolla Summerfest, Caramoor, and Chamber Music Northwest. The members of the Formosa Quartet currently serve on faculty at Eastern Michigan University, Roosevelt University, and Heifetz International Music Institute. They have previously taught at the Taos School of Music and the Juilliard School.
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Coming soon:
Thursday, April 3, 7 pm
Aeolus Quartet
More information at https://www.sbma.net/events/aeolus-quartet