Celebrate Diversity in Music with The Harlem Quartet
and ANMS student performers

June 9, 2008 7:30 pm - Regis College, Weston

About the Artists

The Harlem Quartet, comprised of First-Place Laureates of the Sphinx Competition, has a unique and challenging mission: to advance diversity in classical music while engaging young and new audiences through the discovery and presentation of varied repertoire, highlighting works by minority composers.

Dedicated to education and community engagement as well as to superb classical performance, this innovative and daring all-Black and Latino string quartet serves as principal faculty at the Sphinx Performance Academy at Walnut Hill School in Massachusetts, one of the premier independent arts prep schools in the world, and as visiting faculty at the Sphinx Preparatory Music Institute at Wayne State University in Detroit.

The Harlem Quartet made their acclaimed Carnegie Hall debut in the fall of 2006 at the Sphinx Organization's 10th anniversary gala at Carnegie Hall, earning rave reviews from The New York Times. A month later they debuted at the legendary Apollo Theatre in Harlem, this time with a well-received performance of Wynton Marsalis's At the Octoroon Balls. They returned to Carnegie in late January 2007 as participants in Arts Presenters' prestigious and highly competitive Young Performers Career Advancement (YPCA) program. For their most recent Carnegie performance in September, 2007, Vivien Schweitzer of The New York Times enthusiastically praised the quartet commenting, "The Harlem Quartet played with panache."

In addition to being avid chamber musicians, each member of the Harlem Quartet is a seasoned solo artist, having appeared with the New York Philharmonic, the Atlanta, Cleveland, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Sinaloa de las Artes (Mexico) and Baltimore symphonies and the Boston Pops, among others. As a quartet, they have performed in many communities across the country including Detroit, New York, Atlanta and Boston.

In the past year the Harlem Quartet has been featured on WNBC, CNN and the Today Show, and will release their first CD in 2007 with White Pine Music label. On their busy concert calendar in 2007-2008 are engagements in Michigan, New York, Massachusetts, Indiana, and California. Upcoming in 2008-2009 is an exciting collaboration with New York Philharmonic principal cellist Carter Brey on Schubert's String Quintet.

Harlem Quartet Members

Ilmar Gavilan, violin
Melissa White, violin
Juan-Miguel Hernandez, viola
Desmond Neysmith, cello

National Acclaim

Young, black and Latino in a Concert for Diversity
The Harlem Quartet Played with panache. Read More...

— Vivien Schweitzer, The New York Times


Music in Review; Sphinx Chamber Orchestra
The violinist Ilmar Gavilan and the violist Juan-Miguel Hernandez from the Harlem Quartet, an ensemble of Sphinx prizewinners, gave a commanding account of a Handel passacaglia, arranged by Johan Halvorsen. They were then joined by the other members of their quartet (the violinist Melissa White and the cellist Desmond Neysmith) for an exciting account of two movements from Wynton Marsalis's episodic and stylistically eclectic string quartet ''At the Octoroon Balls.'' Read More...

— Anthony Tommasini, New York Times

Tickets

Online

Phone & Mail

About the Venue

Eleanor Welch Casey Theatre at Regis College

Press Contact: Jeanne Gugino, Director of Public Relations: 617-527-4553 x 106 or email: jgugino@allnewtonmusicschool.com
Ticket Contact: Michael Ibrahim, Director of Development: 617-527-4553 x 102 or email: mibrahim@allnewtonmusicschool.com