Jasper String Quartet & Friends: Collaboration in Concert
The Jasper String Quartet, hailed as “sonically delightful and expressively compelling” by The Strad, team up with pianist Gloria Chien and violinist Soovin Kim to perform three collaborative compositions including the Northwest premiere of a new Four Seasons composed by Joan Tower, Christopher Theofanidis, Lera Auerbach, and Akira Nishimura.
This concert has been rescheduled to the date below. If you have tickets, they have automatically been exchanged for the new date. New tickets will be sent two weeks prior to the concert. Please contact our Box Office at 503-294-6400 or .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) with questions or for exchanges, ticket donations, and refunds.
Program
Click on any piece of music below to learn more about it.
- R. SCHUMANN, BRAHMS, DIETRICH “F-A-E” Sonata for Violin and Piano
Allegro (Dietrich)
Intermezzo (Schumann)
Scherzo (Brahms)
Finale (Schumann)When the 20-year-old Johannes Brahms met Robert and Clara Schumann in September 1853, they immediately recognized the young newcomer’s potential. As Clara wrote in her diary, “Here is one of those who comes as if sent straight from God.”
The Schumanns quickly integrated Brahms into their artistic circle, which included a young conductor and composer named Albert Dietrich. In October, Dietrich, Robert Schumann, and Brahms decided to surprise another friend – the violinist Joseph Joachim – with a musical present, the “F-A-E” Sonata for Violin and Piano.
“F-A-E” refers to Joachim’s unofficial motto, frei aber einsam (free but lonely) – a timely catchphrase given that Joachim had recently gone through a messy breakup. Dietrich, Schumann, and Brahms gifted the sonata to Joachim without telling him who had written each movement. After playing it through with Clara Schumann on piano, Joachim easily identified the identity of each movement’s composer – Dietrich wrote the first movement, Schumann the second and fourth, and Brahms the third.
– Ethan Allred
- RIMSKY-KORSAKOV, LYADOV, BORODIN, GLAZUNOV String Quartet on the Theme “B-La-F”
Sostenuto assai. Allegro (Rimsky-Korsakov)
Scherzo. Vivace (Lyadov)
Serenata alla spagnola. Allegretto (Borodin)
Finale. Allegro (Glazunov)Mitrofan Petrovich Belyaev (1836–1904) was one of the most important figures in the history of Russian music – though not for his own skill as a performer or composer. A lumber millionaire and chamber music enthusiast, Belyaev decided in 1885 to dedicate his life to the promotion of Russian music. He founded a music publishing firm in Leipzig, eventually publishing over 2,000 compositions by Russian composers like Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Anatoly Liadov, Alexander Borodin, and Alexander Glazunov.
In 1886, those four composers teamed up to create a “thank you” present for Belyaev’s support in the form of a co-authored string quartet celebrating of his 50th name day. The musical inspiration for this String Quartet on the Theme “B-La-F” comes from Belyaev’s name itself – “B–La–F,” which corresponds to the notes “B-flat–A–F.” Each composer provided one movement: the Sostenuto assai et Allegro is by Rimsky-Korsakov, the Scherzo by Liadov, the Serenade by Borodin, and the Finale by Glazunov.
– Ethan Allred
- LERA AUERBACH, AKIRA NISHIMURA, CHRISTOPHER THEOFANIDIS & JOAN TOWER Four Seasons (Co-commissioned Northwest Premiere, 2019)
Jasper Quartet
New exclusive performance!
Artists
-
Jasper String Quartet
String Ensemble
-
J Freivogel, violin
Karen Kim, violin
Sam Quintal, viola
Rachel Henderson Freivogel, celloWinner of the prestigious CMA Cleveland Quartet Award, Philadelphia’s Jasper String Quartet is the Professional Quartet in Residence at Temple University’s Center for Gifted Young Musicians and the Founder and Artistic Director of Jasper Chamber Concerts.
The Jaspers have been hailed as “sonically delightful and expressively compelling” (The Strad) and The New York Times named their recent album, Unbound, as one of the 25 Best Classical Recordings of 2017.
The Quartet’s latest release on Sono Luminus features their commission of Aaron Jay Kernis’ Quartet No. 3 and Debussy Quartet Op. 10. This, their 5th album, adds to their recordings of Beethoven Op. 59, No. 3, Beethoven Op. 131, Schubert Death and the Maiden and the first recordings of quartets by Donnacha Dennehy, Annie Gosfield, Judd Greenstein, Ted Hearne, David Lang, Missy Mazzoli and Caroline Shaw.
Formed at Oberlin Conservatory, the Jaspers began pursuing a professional career in 2006 while studying with James Dunham, Norman Fischer, and Kenneth Goldsmith as Rice University’s Graduate Quartet-in-Residence. In 2008, the quartet continued its training with the Tokyo String Quartet as Yale University’s Graduate Quartet-in-Residence.
The Jasper String Quartet is named after Jasper National Park in Alberta, Canada. The quartet receives Career Development support from Astral Artists and is represented exclusively by Dispeker Artists.
-
Gloria Chien
Piano & Artistic Director
-
Taiwanese-born pianist Gloria Chien has one of the most diverse musical lives as a noted performer, concert presenter, and educator. She made her orchestral debut at the age of sixteen with the Boston Symphony Orchestra with Thomas Dausgaard, and she performed again with the BSO with Keith Lockhart. She was subsequently selected by The Boston Globe as one of its Superior Pianists of the year, “who appears to excel in everything.” In recent seasons, she has performed as a recitalist and chamber musician at Alice Tully Hall, the Library of Congress, the Dresden Chamber Music Festival, and the National Concert Hall in Taiwan. She performs frequently with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. In 2009, she launched String Theory, a chamber music series in Chattanooga, Tennessee that has become one of the region’s premier classical music presenters. The following year she was appointed director of the Chamber Music Institute at Music@Menlo, a position she held for the next decade.
In 2017, she joined her husband, violinist Soovin Kim, as artistic director of the Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival in Burlington, Vermont. The duo became artistic directors at Chamber Music Northwest in Portland, Oregon in 2020. They were named recipients of Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Award for Extraordinary Service in 2021 for their efforts during the pandemic.
Most recently, Gloria was named Advisor of the newly launched Institute for Concert Artists at the New England Conservatory of Music. Gloria released two albums—her Gloria Chien LIVE from the Music@Menlo LIVE label and Here With You with acclaimed clarinetist Anthony McGill on Cedille Records.
Gloria received her bachelor, master’s, and doctoral degrees at the New England Conservatory of Music with Wha Kyung Byun and Russell Sherman. She is Artist-in-Residence at Lee University in Cleveland, Tennessee, and she is a Steinway Artist.
Upcoming Concerts & Events
-
Soovin Kim
2025 YAI Faculty, Violin & Artistic Director
-
Soovin Kim enjoys a broad musical career regularly performing Bach sonatas and Paganini caprices for solo violin, sonatas for violin and piano ranging from Beethoven to Ives, Mozart, and Haydn concertos and symphonies as a conductor, and new world-premiere works almost every season. When he was 20 years old, Kim received first prize at the Paganini International Violin Competition. He immersed himself in the string quartet literature for 20 years as the 1st violinist of the Johannes Quartet. Among his many commercial recordings are his “thrillingly triumphant” (Classic FM Magazine) disc of Paganini’s demanding 24 Caprices and a two-disc set of Bach’s complete solo violin works that were released in 2022.
Kim is the founder and artistic director of the Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival (LCCMF) in Burlington, Vermont. In addition to its explorative programming and extensive work with living composers, LCCMF created the ONE Strings program through which all 3rd through 5th grade students of the Integrated Arts Academy in Burlington study violin. The University of Vermont recognized Soovin Kim’s work by bestowing an Honorary Doctorate upon him in 2015. In 2020, he and his wife, pianist Gloria Chien, became artistic directors of Chamber Music Northwest in Portland, Oregon. He, with Chien, were awarded Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s 2021 CMS Award for Extraordinary Service to Chamber Music. Kim devotes much of his time to his passion for teaching at the New England Conservatory in Boston and the Yale School of Music in New Haven.
Upcoming Concerts & Events