Ying Quartet February 13, 2009

Schwab Auditorium

The members of Ying Quartet have demonstrated their extraordinary ability to communicate—through music and words—in their 2003 and 2005 appearances at Penn State. The four siblings from Chicago—violinists Timothy and Janet, violist Phillip, and cellist David—possess exceptional energy, intelligence, and passion. The New York Times describes their performances as “riveting and uplifting.” The Yings, who began playing as an ensemble in 1992 and won the Naumburg Chamber Music Award in 1993, are devoted to making chamber music—the classics and new works—relevant to everyday life. The quartet’s program includes Puccini’s Crisantemi, a single-movement elegy written in 1890 in response to the death of the Duke of Savoy; works by various Chinese-American composers; and Ravel’s lone string quartet, composed in 1903 and dedicated to his friend and teacher Gabriel Fauré. The ensemble, which plans a two-day residency working with students and faculty at Penn State, has been quartet-in-residence at the University of Rochester’s Eastman School of Music since 1996 and at Harvard University since 2001.

Giacomo Puccini (Italian): Crisantemi (Chrysanthemums)
Selections by Chinese-American composers: Musical Dim Sum
Maurice Ravel (French): Quartet in F Major

The performance of the Maurice Ravel’s Quartet in F Major is part of Moments of Change, a Penn State Institute for the Arts and Humanities multifaceted and ongoing initiative focused in 2008–2009 on the turn of the twentieth century (1889-1914). The performance is made possible through a partnership between the Center for the Performing Arts and the Institute for the Arts and Humanities.

Official Website: http://www.cpa.psu.edu