AFIARA STRING QUARTET IS NAMED THE JUILLIARD SCHOOL'S NEW GRADUATE RESIDENT STRING QUARTET. Beginning this September, the quartet will be teaching assistants to the world famous Juilliard String Quartet and presented in a full recital at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall. For more information, click to read The Juilliard School's recent press release .
The all-Canadian Afiara String Quartet is the Morrison Fellowship Quartet-in-Residence at San Francisco State University's International Center for the Arts, where they serve as teaching assistants to their mentors, the world-renowned Alexander String Quartet. In 2008, the Afiara Quartet won the Concert Artists Guild International Competition in New York, following a top prize at the Munich ARD International Music Competition that same year. The quartet is the only Canadian ensemble to win top honors in either of these historic competitions. The San Francisco Classical Voice calls the Afiara Quartet "a terrifically unified, versatile, and moving ensemble" with "startling intensity" and a "powerful, keen-edged collective sound". They have performed at Carnegie Hall in the "Kronos: Signature Works" series, were presented in their New York debut by Chamber Music America and the Kronos Quartet at St. Luke's Church, have been heard on Bavarian Radio, CBC Radio 2, KALW, and were featured in the "Road to Banff" documentary.
This season, the Afiaras will play concerts with Chamber Music in Occidental, the Chautauqua Institution, Old First Church Concerts, Princeton University Summer Chamber Music Series, San Jose Chamber Music Society, and Sierra Chamber Society, and in Canada with the Calgary ProMusica Series, Montreal Chamber Music Festival, and the Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival. The quartet will also appear with the Alexander String Quartet in a performance of Mendelssohn's Octet with San Francisco Performances at Herbst Theatre, with pianist Stephen Prutsman in San Jose and Nevada City's Music in the Mountains, and with Bonnie Hampton in a performance of Schubert's Cello Quintet with the Starcross Festival. In June, the Afiaras will perform and teach at the Indiana University Summer Music Festival and String Academy. Under the auspices of the ICA, the Afiara Quartet will also be recording its debut CD with the Foghorn Classics label, which will include quartets by Mendelssohn and Schubert, as well as the Mendelssohn Octet with the Alexander String Quartet, to be released in the spring of 2009.
Since their inception in 2006 at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, they have been Artists-in-Residence at Lake Tahoe Music Festival's Education and Outreach Program, faculty ensemble at Chamber Music of the Rockies and Canada's Southern Ontario Chamber Music Institute, and Affiliates of San Francisco Friends of Chamber Music. In 2008, they were one of the two fellowship quartets at the 2008 Aspen Music Festival’s Center for Advanced Quartet Studies. They have also benefited from several visits to the Banff Centre's Fall/Winter Residencies, where, in the beauty of the Canadian Rockies, they work with international faculty and are inspired by the many creative projects around them.
To date, the quartet has given the world premiere of Brett Abigana's Une Grande Messe in San Francisco, the East Coast premiere of Peteris Vasks' String Quartet in New York, and Jason Bush's string quartet Visions, which is dedicated to and written for the Afiara String Quartet, received its world premiere in San Francisco. In collaboration with timpanist Louis Siu, they commissioned and premiered new chamber music repertoire for string quartet and the tenor timpani, resulting in many new works for the medium. The Afiaras also gave the world premiere of Huck Hodge's String Quartet No. 2 in New York with the support of the American Composers Forum and the Jerome Foundation.
The Afiara String Quartet takes its name from the Spanish fiar, meaning "to trust". It has been said that chamber music is a conversation between friends. Within the support of friendship, the Afiaras found that trusting each other, in rehearsal and on stage, was vital to the depth and joy of their music-making. The Afiara Quartet is committed to education and connecting to audiences on different levels. They combine urban elements to their outreach and make new connections in their presentations by coupling together Haydn and hip-hop, complete with a rapping cellist, often to the glee of students and enthusiastic amusement of adults. They have collaborated and performed with the rap group Blunt Delphix.
Along with their studies with the Alexander String Quartet, the Afiaras are fortunate to have worked with members of the American, Cavani, Emerson, Kronos, Takacs, and Ying String Quartets, Earl Carlyss, James Dunham, Henk Guittart, Bonnie Hampton, Geoff Nuttall, Barry Shiffman and Scott St. John, and at the San Francisco Conservatory with Paul Hersh, Mark Sokol, and Ian Swensen.
