The annual Bessie Bartlett Frankel Festival of Chamber Music will take place at 3:00 p.m. on Sunday, September 29, at Balch Auditorium on the Scripps College campus. This year, the event features the critically acclaimed Cavani String Quartet with a diverse program that includes Claude Debussy’s Quartet in G minor, Op. 10; Béla Bartók’s String Quartet No. 5; and Margaret Brouwer’s Demeter Prelude. This event is free and open to the public. For more information, please call (909) 621-8280.
Named after the 19th century violin maker, Vincenzo Cavani, the all-women Cavani String Quartet-Annie Fullard and Mari Sato, violin, Kirsten Docter, viola, and Merry Peckham, cello-has been described by critics as “completely engrossing, powerful and elegant.” Since their New York debut in 1987, the Quartet has consistently earned critical praise and numerous honors, and regularly performs in major international concert series and festivals, including the Carnegie Hall Centennial Series in New York; the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC; the Ambassador Series in Los Angeles; Muziekcentrum De Ijsbreker in Amsterdam; and Festival de L’Epau in France.
Music educators as well as performers, the Cavani Quartet has taught technique and music courses at university and summer programs, including the Perlman Music Program, sponsored by internationally renown violinist Itzhak Perlman-an association that this summer earned the Quartet an opportunity to publicly perform with Perlman and pianist Rohan DeSilva. In addition, the Cavani Quartet has taught masterclasses, workshops, and seminars; developed a series of educational and outreach programs for students of a variety of levels and ages, including a series of children’s concerts for The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center; served as artists-in-residence at University of California, Riverside and University of Texas, Austin; and been on the faculty at Cleveland Institute of Music as quartet-in-residence since 1988.
The Cavani Quartet has commissioned and performed the music of a worldwide array of living composers, including Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, Dan Welcher, Joan Tower, Donald Erb and James Primosch. Consistently a top prize winner in numerous competitions, the Quartet is a recipient of the prestigious Naumburg Chamber Music Award, an ASCAP/Chamber Music America Award for Adventurous Programming of Contemporary Music, the Coleman, Fischoff, Banff International, and Cleveland Quartet Competition.