Concert Program

Faculty Recital Series

Avalon String Quartet

Blaise Magnière, violin
Richard O. Ryan Endowed Chair in Violin

Marie Wang, violin

Anthony Devroye, viola

Cheng-Hou Lee, cello

Special Guest
Zachary Good, clarinet

Tuesday, January 3, 2026
7 p.m.
NIU Recital Hall

Program

Biographies

Zachary Good is a multifaceted clarinetist, chamber musician, composer and educator based in Chicago. He is the clarinetist of the sextet Eighth Blackbird, a member of Ensemble Dal Niente, and a founding co-artistic director and member of the eccentric performance collective Mocrep. He is a frequent guest with Music of the Baroque Chicago, Present Music Milwaukee, International Contemporary Ensemble and the puppet company Manual Cinema. As an improviser, he performs and records with the trio ZRL and the quintet Honestly Same, as well as regularly appearing on improvised music series throughout Chicago. His discography includes releases on Cedille Records, Moon Glyph Records, American Dreams Records, Carrier Records, No Index, Homeroom, Parlour Tapes+, ears&eyes and his own record label Add Dye Editions.

As a composer, Zachary explores contrapuntal possibilities on the soprano clarinet with small–interval multiphonics (“close dyads” or double stops), creating the illusion of multiple clarinetists playing simultaneously. His music is quietly virtuosic, inspired by the intricacies of the clarinet and a love for Baroque nuance and form. As an arranger, Zachary’s Style Brisé project (2017–present) is an ongoing series of French Baroque harpsichord preludes arranged for bass clarinet, including preludes by Élisabeth de La Guerre, Louis and François Couperin, and Gaspard Le Roux. As a collaborator, Zachary enjoys working closely with composers to bring new work to life, having premiered over 150 compositions to date. While a fellow and regular member of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago from 2014–2016, he developed the Orchestra’s New Music Workshop, which continues today as the orchestra’s semi-annual Call for Scores.

Described by the Chicago Tribune as “an ensemble that invites you — ears, mind, and spirit — into its music,” the Avalon String Quartet has established itself as one of the country’s leading chamber music ensembles. The Avalon has performed in major venues including Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, the 92nd St Y, Merkin Hall, and Bargemusic in New York; the Library of Congress and National Gallery of Art in Washington DC; Wigmore Hall in London; and Herculessaal in Munich. Other performances include appearances at the Bath International Music Festival, Aldeburgh Festival, Caramoor, La Jolla Chamber Music Society, NPR’s St. Paul Sunday, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Dame Myra Hess Concerts, Los Angeles Music Guild, and the Ravinia Festival. In previous seasons the quartet performed an annual concert series in Ganz Hall, Chicago, and at historic Fullerton Hall at the Art Institute of Chicago, where it has presented the complete quartet cycles of Beethoven, Bartok, and Brahms.

The Avalon is quartet-in-residence at the Northern Illinois University School of Music, a position formerly held by the Vermeer Quartet. Additional teaching activities have included the Icicle Creek Chamber Music Institute, Interlochen Advanced Quartet Program, Madeline Island Music Camp, and the Britten-Pears School in England, as well as masterclasses at universities and conservatories throughout the United States. Additionally, they have given numerous performances and presentations to young audiences in under-resourced schools and communities.

In 2021 the quartet recorded two string quartets of Leo Sowerby for Cedille Records on an album titled “Leo Sowerby: the Paul Whiteman Commissions and Other Early Works”. In 2018 they released a recording of the complete quartets of Matthew Quayle for Naxos, and recorded “Aqua” by Harold Meltzer for Bridge Records, a recording which received a Grammy nomination for Best Classical Compendium. They previously released other critically- acclaimed recordings for Cedille Records and Albany Records. The Avalon String Quartet’s debut CD, Dawn to Dusk, featuring quartets by Ravel and Janacek, was honored with the 2002 Chamber Music America/WQXR Record Award for best chamber music recording.

The quartet’s live performances and conversations are frequently featured on Chicago fine arts radio station WFMT. They have also been heard on New York’s WQXR and WNYC, National Public Radio’s Performance Today, Canada’s CBC, Australia’s ABC, the ARD of Germany, and France Musique.

The Avalon captured the top prize at the ARD Competition in Munich (2000) and First Prize at the Concert Artists Guild Competition in New York City (1999). In its early years, the ensemble trained intensively with the Juilliard Quartet at The Juilliard School, the Emerson Quartet at the Hartt School of Music, and the Vermeer Quartet at Northern Illinois University.