'At The Performance Hall' Features Two Events in its Second Week

The Fry Street Quartet is featured in performance Monday, June 8. Concert time is 7:30 p.m. at USU’s Performance Hall (approximately 1090 E. 675 North, Logan). Admission is $10 for everyone.

Tickets are available in advance at the Caine School of the Arts Box Office in the Chase Fine Arts Center, Room 139B, online or over the phone, (435) 797-8022. Tickets are also available at the door performance evenings.

 

The Fry Street Quartet was recently named “Instrumental Group of the Year” at the 2009 “Best of State Awards.” The group is the only faculty quartet-in-residence in the state, and in addition to teaching duties on campus, performs across the country as a professional quartet. The quartet performed last summer in the first scholarship series and returns this summer to bring light to Beethoven’s string quartets follow its acclaimed and award-winning complete Beethoven Quartet Cycle presented earlier this season.

 

Two works are planned for the evening, the Beethoven String Quartet in G Major, Op. 18, No. 2 and Dvorak’s String Quartet in F Major, Op. 97 (“American”).

 

“This concert, paired with Dvorak’s ‘American’ quartet, shed light on the effect of Beethoven’s masterworks on the genre of string quartet writing,” said quartet member William Fedkenheuer. “The Beethoven quartet emerges as a charming and witty work to the delight of the audience. The ‘American’ quartet was written while Dvorak lived and composed in Spillville, Iowa.”

 

Fedkenheur said Dvorak was inspired to compose the quartet in a matter of days. Many in the audience may hear the quartet’s strains of Black spirituals and plantation songs, as well as elements of American Indian music, he said.

 

Members of the Fry Street Quartet include Fedkenheuer on violin; Rebecca McFaul, violin; Russell Fallstad, viola; and Anne Francis, cello.

 

The New York Times hailed a performance by the quartet as “a triumph of ensemble playing,” and Strad Magazine said the Fry Street Quartet has perfected a “blend of technical precision and scorching spontaneity.”

 

Since securing the Millennium Grand Prize at the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition in 2000, the Fry Street Quartet has reached audiences from Carnegie Hall to Sarajevo and Jerusalem, exploring the medium of the string quartet and its life-affirming potential with “profound understanding, … depth of expression, and stunning technical astuteness” (Deseret Morning News).

 

The week’s second concert features a children’s choir as guests for the “At the Performance Hall” series, the Texas Children’s Choir. The USU campus is a stop on the choir’s tour that includes several performances in Utah. The choir is featured at USU Friday, June 12, with a 7:30 p.m. performance time at the Performance Hall. Tickets are available through the Caine School of the Arts Box Office and at the door. Admission is $10.

 

The Texas Children’s Choir is based in San Antonio and includes boys and girls ages 8-15.

 

For information about “At the Performance Hall,” contact USU’s Department of Music, (435) 797-3015. Ticket information is available at (435) 797-8022.

 

 

 

Writer: Patrick Williams (435) 797-1354
Contact: Craig Jessop (435) 797-3015