Crowden continues its 40th anniversary season on Sunday, March 3, presenting the acclaimed Fry Street Quartet in a rare west coast performance featuring a new commission by Gabriela Lena Frank along with works by Beethoven and Shostakovich.
Hailed as “a triumph of ensemble playing” by the New York Times, this globally acclaimed, Fischoff Grand Prize-winning quartet is a frequent member of Crowden's renowned summer chamber music faculty. This concert is the Bay Area’s first opportunity to hear Gabriela Lena Frank’s latest commission by FSQ, A Psalm of Disquiet, as Fry Street will perform the west coast premiere just two days prior, in Healdsburg.
Crowden Music Center is celebrating its 40th anniversary this 2023-24 season, presenting illustrious alumni and faculty from throughout its history. crowden.org/40
About Fry Street Quartet
This remarkable quartet - hailed as "a triumph of ensemble playing" by the New York Times - is a multi-faceted ensemble taking chamber music in new directions. The quartet has reached audiences from Carnegie Hall to London, and Sarajevo to 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).
With a discography that includes a wide range of works from Haydn and Beethoven to Stravinsky, Rorem, and Kaminsky, the quartet is known for being "Equally at home in the classic repertoire of Mozart and Beethoven or contemporary music," (Palm Beach Daily News). The FSQ has commissioned and toured new works by a wide range of composers, and upcoming commissions include quartets by Clarice Assad, Gabriela Lena Frank, and Laura Kaminsky. After more than 50 performances in three different countries, Rising Tide: The Crossroads Project continues to resonate with audiences. A collaboration with physicist Dr. Robert Davies, this fresh approach to communicating society’s sustainability challenges draws upon all the senses with a unique blend of science and art. A film version of the project was released in fall of 2020.
The quartet's touring history includes performances at major venues and festivals, and for distinguished series such as Carnegie Hall and the Schneider Series at the New School in New York, the Jewel Box series in Chicago, Chamber Music Columbus, the Kravis Center in West Palm Beach, the DiBartolo Performing Arts Center at Notre Dame, the Theosophical Society in London, and the Mozart Gemeinde in Klagenfurt, Austria.
The Fry Street Quartet holds the Dan C. and Manon Caine Russell Endowed String Quartet Residency at the Caine College of the Arts at Utah State University. In 2019 the members of the FSQ were named co-Music Directors of the NOVA Chamber Music Series in Salt Lake City, an appointment that continues through 2024.