Northern Illinois University’s world-class Avalon String Quartet will perform works of Joseph Haydn, Dmitri Shostakovich and Franz Schubert, Thursday, October 3 at 8 p.m. Admission is free of charge.
The concert is the first of four this year for NIU’s quartet-in-residence, and will be held at the Recital Hall, Northern Illinois University, School of Music, 550 Lucinda Ave., DeKalb.
The program will open with Haydn’s Opus 33 no. 2, nicknamed “The Joke,” one of his best-known quartets. Haydn is considered the father of the string quartet, and the father of the symphony.
The quartet will then play Shostakovich’s Quartet Number Seven. “At 12 minutes it’s the shortest of his 15 quartets,” said Anthony Devroye, Avalon Quartet violist and NIU School of Music faculty member. “It’s intense and enigmatic and abstract. It’s punchy and detached, very emotionally austere.”
Finally, they will perform Schubert’s Quartet No. 15 in G Major. “It’s Schubert’s final string quartet,” Devroye said. “It’s a 45-minute piece and a real journey. There’s a lifetime worth of emotional complexity and depth.”
This will be the first time the Avalon String Quartet has performed any of these pieces in DeKalb.
Their upcoming concerts in DeKalb are November 21, January 30 and April 26, all in the Recital Hall and starting at 8 p.m. The quartet will perform a work of Shostakovich in each concert, as well as music of Mozart, Beethoven, Grieg, and several contemporary composers.
The Avalon String Quartet also maintains a concert series at the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC), as part of a partnership between The AIC and NIU. Each performance will make a connection to traveling exhibits, and will be held on Sunday afternoons at 2 p.m. in Fullerton Hall at the AIC, 111 South Michigan Ave., Chicago, November 5, January 14, March 25 and May 13.
Members of the Avalon String Quartet are:
Blaise Magnière, violin — French violinist Blaise Magnière is a founding member of the Avalon String Quartet. He has appeared at festivals such as Caramoor, Mostly Mozart, La Jolla, Ravinia, Bath and Aldeburgh. His performances and conversation have been heard on BBC, CBC (Canada), ABC (Australia) and France-Musique. He has recorded for the Cedille, New Tangent, Albany and Channel Classics labels, and earned the 2002 Chamber Music America/WQXR Record Award.
He holds the Richard O. Ryan Endowed Chair in Violin at Northern Illinois University. He studied at the Yehudi Menuhin School in England during his high-school years before going to McGill University in Montreal, where he studied with Mauricio Fuks, and to the Cleveland Institute of Music with Donald Weilerstein. As an assistant to the Juilliard String Quartet, Magnière coached chamber music at the Juilliard School.
Marie Wang, violin — Violinist Marie Wang has been in the Avalon String Quartet since its inception in 1995. As a member of this award-winning ensemble, she has captured top prizes at the Concert Artists Guild and the Munich ARD international competitions. The quartet has been invited to perform at Wigmore Hall, Carnegie and Weill Halls, Alice Tully, 92nd St Y, Herculessaal (Munich), and the Library of Congress, among others. Marie has collaborated with artists such as Gilbert Kalish, Juilliard and Pacifica Quartets and members of the Emerson Quartet. Her recordings with the quartet can be found on Cedille Records, Albany Records and on Channel Classics.
Marie’s solo recitals have been broadcast on NPR and her Concerto appeareances have been broadcast on CBC Radio Canada. She was a finalist in the CIBC National Music Competition and was a “Berol Rising Star” at the Caramoor Music Festival, NY.
Ms. Wang received a bachelor’s degree in violin performance from McGill University, (Mauricio Fuks), and a master’s degree in performance from Northern Illinois University (Mathias Tacke and Shmuel Ashkenasi). She also holds an Artist Diploma from the Juilliard School in Quartet Studies while she served as a teaching assistant to the Juilliard Quartet as a part of the Lisa Arnold Graduate Quartet Residency. Presently, Marie serves as an Associate Professor of Violin at Northern Illinois University. Prior to her appointment at NIU, she was an Artist in Residence at Indiana University South Bend.
Anthony Devroye, viola — Anthony Devroye has been violist of the Avalon String Quartet since 2004. He is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied with Michael Tree and Roberto Diaz; and holds a B.A. in Biological Science from Columbia University, where he pursued concurrent viola studies at The Juilliard School under Toby Appel, Heidi Castleman and Misha Amory. Prior to joining the quartet, he held a two-year fellowship with the New World Symphony.
In addition to his numerous performances with the Avalon Quartet, Mr. Devroye is an occasional guest with the Chicago Symphony (with whom he has toured the United States, Europe and Mexico under Riccardo Muti), Chicago Chamber Musicians, and Grant Park Music Festival. His recitals, chamber music performances and commentary have been regularly featured on WFMT radio, and he has appeared as concerto soloist with the Illinois Philharmonic and Kishwaukee Symphony. In 2014, he became Artistic Director of Rush Hour Concerts in Chicago, an organization that promotes open access to world-class chamber music through free concerts and educational initiatives. Devroye is an Associate Professor in the School of Music at Northern Illinois University.
Cheng-Hou Lee, cello —Cellist Cheng-Hou Lee, a native of Taiwan, received both the bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Juilliard School. He also earned a master’s degree in chamber music at Rice University, where he was a founding member of the award-winning Gotham Quartet. He was a full-scholarship student at New England Conservatory, where he received his Doctoral of Musical Art. Mr. Lee has worked with world-renowned artists such as Yo-Yo Ma, Harvey Shapiro, Janos Starker, Mistilav Rostropovich, Zara Nclsova, Paul Katz, Steven Iserlis, Raphael Wallfisch, Gary Hoffman, Tim Eddy, and members of the Juilliard, Tokyo, and Alban Berg Quartets. Cheng-Hou has won the Chi-Mei Foundation Award for Outstanding Talents, the concerto competition at the Manhattan School of Music, Tuesday Musical Club Competition in Houston and twice the National Cello Competition in Taiwan, and he has appeared on WQXR radio station in New York City, WFMT radio station in Chicago and many others in the US.
As a chamber musician, Mr. Lee performed with renowned artists such as cellists Paul Katz and Yehuda Hanani, violinists Don Weilerstein, Shmuel Ashkenasi, Robert Chen, Rachel Barton Pine and Lucy Chapman, violists Kim Kashkashian, Hsin-Yun Huang, Richard Young and Richard O’Neill, Clarinetist Anthony McGill, pianists Ruth Laredo, Meng-Chieh Liu and Christina Dahl, the Boromeo String Quartet, the Miami String Quartet, and American composer William Bolcom. In addition, he has appeared in concerts for the David G. Whitcomb Foundation, Ravinia Festival’s Steans Institute, Jordan Hall’s 100th anniversary in Boston, the Omega Ensemble in New York City, the Charles Wadsworth and Friends Series, Robert Kapilow’s “What Makes It Great?” Series at Lincoln Center, Cape Cod Chamber Music Festival, and Summermusic at Market Square Concerts.
In recent years, Mr. Lee has given solo recitals at the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concerts Series and the Susa Marshall Memorial Concert Series, and appeared as a concerto soloist with Chicago Chamber Orchestra, Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra, and NIU Philharmonic. In addition, he has performed regularly with the Chicago Chamber Musicians, and made other solo or chamber appearances in the Chicago area.
