The second work is the Demeter Prelude of Margaret Brouwer, the head of the domposition department at Cleveland Institute of Music, where the Cavani Quartet is currently quartet-in-residence. Ms Brouwer’s music has been called lyrical, accessible, and powerful. The New York Times calls it “bewitching, with no obvious concession to the styles of the day.”

The concert will end with Dvorak’s best-known and most popular quartet, Quartet in F Major, nicknamed “The American.”  Written while Dvorak was summering in the Czech farming community of Spillville, Iowa, it weaves beautiful original themes together with elements of folk music, native American drumming, a hymn tune, and even the song of the scarlet tanager.

Named for 19th Century violin makers Giovanni and Vincenzo Cavani, the Cavani String Quartet made its debut in 1984. The four artists – violinists Annie Fullard and Mari Sato, violist Kirsten Docter and cellist Merry Peckham – have been playing together ever since.

They perform regularly on major concert series and festivals throughout North America and Europe, and in 1989 won the prestigious Naumburg Chamber Music Award.  The Washington Post has said the Cavani String Quartet “succeeds like few others in communicating the fun of music-making and the sheer joy of balancing timbres and weaving sound.”

The quartet is a recipient of an ASCAP/Chamber Music America Award for Adventurous Programming of Contemporary Music and has commissioned and performed the music of a worldwide array of living composers. They have appeared in the Carnegie Hall Centennial Series and in Alice Tully Hall in New York, Corcoran Gallery of Art and Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., as part of The Ambassador Series in Los Angeles, and Muziekcentrum De Ijsbreker in Amsterdam.

Deeply committed to the teaching of chamber music, the quartet has performed two seasons of children’s concerts for The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and has been acclaimed for captivating and inspiring arts-in-education programs, workshops, and residencies. Formerly in residence at the University of California and Visiting Artists in Chamber Music at the University of Texas/Austin, the quartet has also served on the faculty of the Cleveland Institute of Music as quartet-in-residence since 1988.

The Cavani String Quartet will visit Reed Intermediate School on April 26 to work with students in an outreach program sponsored by NFoM and funded by the Albert Wadsworth and Helen Clark Meserve Fund.

Concert tickets are $15 for adults. Children between the ages of five and 14 are welcome and admitted free of charge when accompanied by a ticket-holding adult.

Free parking and handicap access are available at Edmond Town Hall. Light refreshments will be served following the performance, during which time the audience will also have an opportunity to speak with the musicians in an informal setting.

For further information and reservations call 426-6470, write to Newtown Friends of Music at PO Box 295, Newtown  CT  06470-0295, send email to FriendsOfMusic@snet.net, or visit www.NewtownFriendsOfMusic.org.