Parker String Quartet To Reprise Concert In Newtown

You could go to New York and spend an exciting day in the city and take in a concert at Carnegie or Merkin Hall or at the 92nd Street Y.

Or, says Newtown Friends of Music President Ellen Parrella, you could attend the same concert at Edmond Town Hall, where the parking is absolutely free, the brand new elevator takes you to all floors in the building, and where Newtown Friends of Music will host the young Parker String Quartet on Sunday, October 22. The 3 pm concert will be the second concert of NFoM’s 2006-07 season.

Winners of the 2005 Concert Artists Guild International Competition and of the 2005 Bordeaux International String Quartet Competition, Parker String Quartet has quickly established itself as a dynamic young chamber ensemble since its formation in 2002. Winning prestigious prizes at international competitions guarantees the artists engagements in both the USA and in Europe.

Newtown Friends of Music awarded them a performance prize in March 2005 and October 22, 2006, is the day the quartet will appear in concert in Newtown by their invitation.

The musicians will also stay overnight and present a school outreach program at Newtown Middle School the next day.

The quartet’s triumphant November 2005 debut at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, about which The New York Times music critic Allan Kozinn raved that the performance “…set the group apart as something extraordinary…,” helped propel the ensemble very quickly into the chamber music mainstream.  New York appearances in 2006-07 include the quartet’s Lincoln Center’s debut at the Walter Reade Theater, as well as in Symphony Space and the Brooklyn Public Library.

Other featured engagements are at the Wolf Trap Discovery series, Gardner Museum in Boston and a large number of other prestigious venues. Also this season, the quartet was chosen by Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts to be the seventh Ernst Stiefel String Quartet-in-Residence, including three week-long educational residencies, culminating in performances at Caramoor.

In the recording studio the quartet recorded its debut CD in Paris in June, featuring Bartok’s String Quartets Nos 2 and 5, and next year the ensemble will record the string quartets of the late György Ligeti for Naxos.

Violinist Daniel Chong, a native Californian, made his debut playing a Mozart concerto with the Orchestra da Camera in Los Angeles when he was eight years old and already appeared as soloist at age ten. 

Karen Kim, also a violinist, is a Minnesotan, who was named Presidential Scholar by the US Department of Education in 2001. In 2000 she won the Grand Prize in the American String Teacher’s National Solo Competition and the 2001 Music for Youth Foundation scholarship. Ms Kim and Mr Chong both study with Donald Weilerstein.

Violist Jessica Bodner hails from Houston, Texas, where she was the winner of the High School for Performing and Visual Arts Symphony and the Greater Houston Youth Orchestra. She has also been bronze medalist in the Houston Symphony Concerto Competition. Her teachers have included Kim Kashkashian. 

Cellist Kee-Hyun Kim is a native of Seoul, Korea, but he has been schooled in the United States. He has performed as a recitalist, chamber musician and orchestra player in major concert halls. He performs on a 1844 Giacomo Rivolta cello from Milan.

For their concert in Newtown the musicians have chosen a program of beloved string quartets by Mozart and Schumann as well as the Ligeti String Quartet No. 1. György Ligeti, a pioneering composer and born Hungarian who became an Austrian citizen after his emigration in 1956, died in Vienna only a few months ago at the age of 83. Celebrated as one of the world’s leading 20th Century composers he is best known, perhaps (or most certainly in this country), for his score to Stan Kubrick’s movie 2001: A Space Odyssey.  He would have been thrilled to know that young musicians such as Parker String Quartet will make his music available to ever greater audiences by recording it on CD.

As always, there will be an informal reception following the concert giving members of the audience an opportunity to meet and speak with the artists. 

Tickets are $18 for adults, $16 for seniors; and children between the ages of 5 and 14 are admitted free when accompanied by a ticket holding adult.  The box office will open one hour before the performance starts and parking is free behind Edmond Town Hall. The facility is handicap accessible, with handicap parking on the side of Edmond Town Hall.

For further information and ticket reservations call Newtown Friends of Music at 426-6470 or visit                                       NewtownFriendsOfMusic.org.