THE AVIV STRING QUARTET

Saturday, March 5, 2011, 7:30 p.m.
Ames City Auditorium - 6th & Clark, Ames, Iowa
 Find Location . . .

        

“...an ensemble that blends potent interpretive skills with technical precision. Every phrase has a purpose in the overall context; every detail emerges as a crucial element in the musical message.” The Cleveland Plain Dealer

“Its high standards were everywhere apparent . . . ” Washington Post, on 2002 Kennedy Center debut concert

The Ames Town & Gown Chamber Music Association is proud to present the Aviv String Quartet for the third concert of its 2010-2011 season. The Quartet’s program in Ames will feature the Beethoven Quartet No. 10 (“Harp”), the Shostakovich QuartetNo. 9, and Schubert’s Quartet No. 15. Members of the Aviv Quartet are co-founder and first violinist Sergey Ostrovsky, co-founder and second violinist Evgenia Epshtein; Timur Yakubov, viola; and Alexsandr Kramouchin, cello.

Founded in Israel in 1997, the Aviv Quartet has received numerous international awards, including the Grand Prize and four special prizes at the Melbourne Chamber Music Competition, top prize and Critics’ Prize at the Bordeaux String Quartet Competition and First Prize (Amadeus Prize) at the Charles Hennen Competition in Holland.

The Quartet has performed at many prestigious venues. From Cape Town to Stockholm and from China to Brazil, Aviv is emerging as one of today's finest chamber ensembles. In the United States, Aviv has performed at Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, the Kennedy Center, and the Library of Congress, among other venues.
The Aviv Quartet is composed of musicians whose families emigrated to Israel from Russia and Belarus. Aviv means "spring" in Hebrew - signifying new beginnings, a fresh outlook, the season of birth, and the shedding of coverings to reveal true nature, sharper definition and heightened awareness.

The quartet has counted among its mentors Isaac Stern, the Alban Berg Quartet, Walter Levin, and others. Individual members of the Quartet also have performed extensively as soloists and played with various orchestras.

Most recently, the quartet recorded string quartets of Ernst von Dohnányi for Naxos. A CD of three quartets of Erwin Schulhoff has been released on the same label.

The concert is presented by the Town & Gown Chamber Music Association in cooperation with the ISU Department of Music and with financial support from the Commission of the Arts (COTA), the many