Ying Quartet to present final performance of residency

The dynamic and charismatic Ying Quartet returns to complete its 2011 Moore Chamber Music residency at Skidmore College, performing with student string players in a May 3 concert in the Arthur Zankel Music Center's Helen Filene Ladd Concert Hall. 

The performance begins at 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, May 3. General admission for the concert is $12, $5 for students. Tickets are available online. 

The Ying Quartet was in residence for Skidmore's seventh annual String Festival in March, presented as part of the Moore Chamber Music Series. As part of the festival, the Ying musicians coached Skidmore's student quartets.

Members of those same quartets now will present the music they have been rehearsing, performing alongside Ying musicians, who will play in every piece on the program.

Works to be performed include "Allegro ma non troppo" from Schubert's Quintet in C Major, "Allegro non tanto" from Dvorak's Quintet in E-Flat Major; "Variations on a Theme of Tchaikovsky for Strings" by Anton Arenski; and Prelude and Scherzo for String Octet by Shostakovich. Also, the Ying Quartet will perform its own selection: the first movement of Haydn's String Quartet Op. 76, No. 5.

Skidmore student musicians participating in the concert include the following: Andona Zacks-Jordan, Hanna Tonegawa, Victoria Vitale, Jane Esterquest, Sasha Flavell, Jessica Taffet, Stephen Frye, Lily O'Brien, Amelia Colon, Rebecca Schwartz and Lyndsay Stone, violin; Katherine Bohn, Peri Strongwater, Evelyn Eire and Keegan Donlon, viola; Sydney Weill, James Merrick, Alexandra Guest and Bridget Smith, cello; and Matthew Cost and Maya Mortman, bass.

Now in its second decade, the Ying Quartet has established itself as an ensemble of the highest musical qualifications in its tours across the United States and abroad. The quartet's belief that concert music can also be a meaningful part of everyday life has also drawn the foursome to perform in settings as diverse as the workplace, schools, juvenile prisons, and the White House.

Beginning with the 2010-2011 season, brilliant violinist Ayano Ninomiya joined the Ying Quartet as first violin. She is a top prizewinner in the 2003 Naumburg Competition and the 2006 Tibor Varga Competition, and has built a significant career of recital, concerto, music festival, and chamber music appearances. In addition, she brings her own passionate vision for imaginative programming, collaborative work, and audience engagement initiatives. Her presence marks an exciting new chapter of extraordinary and innovative music making in the concert hall and beyond.

Ninomiya fills the chair of Timothy Ying, the original first violin of the all-sibling quartet; Timothy and his siblings, cellist David, violist Phillip, and violinist Janet, are the ensemble's founding members. 

The Ying Quartet's recordings reflect many of the group's wide-ranging musical interests and have generated consistent, enthusiastic acclaim. Their 2007 Telarc release of the three Tchaikovsky Quartets and the Souvenir de Florence (with James Dunham and Paul Katz) was nominated for a Grammy Award in the Best Chamber Music Performance category. In addition, their much-heralded collaboration with the Turtle Island Quartet, "Four + 4," explored the common ground between the classic string quartet tradition and jazz and other American vernacular styles, and won a Grammy Award in 2005. "Dim Sum" (Telarc) is the Ying's most recent recording, featuring music by Chinese-American composers that merges the Western string quartet with the aural world of traditional Chinese music.

The Quartet has also documented its noteworthy LifeMusic commissioning project in its recorded work. Released by Quartz, "The Ying Quartet play LifeMusic" was named Editor's Choice by Gramophone magazine and is the first in a continuing series.



In addition to appearing in conventional concert situations, the Ying Quartet is also known for its diverse and unusual performance projects. For several years the quartet presented a series called "No Boundaries" at Symphony Space in New York City that sought to re-imagine the concert experience. Collaborations with actors, dancers, electronics, a host of non-classical musicians, a magician and even a Chinese noodle chef gave new and thoughtful context to a wide variety of both traditional and contemporary string quartet music.

The Ying Quartet first came to professional prominence in the early 1990s during their years as resident quartet of Jessup, Iowa, a farm town of 2000 people. Playing before audiences of six to 600 in homes, schools, churches, and banks, the quartet had its first opportunities to enable music and creative endeavor to become an integral part of community life. Supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, the residency was widely chronicled in the national media. Toward the end of the residency, the quartet and several of the townspeople were invited to Capitol Hill to testify before Congress on behalf of the NEA.

As quartet-in-residence at the Eastman School of Music, the Ying Quartet teaches in the string department and leads a rigorous, sequentially designed chamber music program. From 2001-2008, the Ying Quartet was Blodgett Artists-in-Residence at Harvard University.