Join the renowned Miró Quartet at the Austin Chamber Music Festival as we celebrate the 200th anniversary of Beethoven’s Quartet Opus 132. This heartfelt masterpiece takes us through the journey of Beethoven’s illness, from facing mortality to spiritual healing. The concert continues with a thrilling musical collaboration, as the Miró Quartet joins forces with the prize-winning Poiesis Quartet to perform Felix Mendelssohn’s masterful String Octet. This unique performance showcases the blending of two extraordinary ensembles of established and emerging talent, delivering an exhilarating and richly textured interpretation of one of chamber music’s most beloved works.
Subject to availability, $12 Student Rush (with student ID), $35 General Admission, $45 Preferred, and $85 Premium tickets may be purchased at the box office on the day of the concert. The box office will open one hour before the concert begins, and hall doors will open for seating 30 minutes before.
Program
String Quartet No. 15 in A Minor, Op. 132 | Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827)
- Assai sostenuto – Allegro
- Allegro ma non tanto
- Molto adagio – Andante
- Alla marcia, assai vivace
- Allegro appassionato
INTERMISSION
String Octet in E-flat major, Op. 20 | Felix Mendelssohn (1809–1847)
- Allegro moderato con fuoco
- Andante
- Scherzo: Allegro leggierissimo
- Presto
MIRO QUARTET
Daniel Ching, William Fedkenheuer, violins |John Largess, viola | Joshua Gindele, cello
POIESIS QUARTET
Sarah Ma, Max Ball, violins | Jasper de Boor, viola | Drew Dansby, cello
Approximate run time: 80 minutes, plus one short intermission
Miró Quartet
The Miró Quartet is one of America’s most celebrated string quartets, praised as “furiously committed” by The New Yorker and recognized for its “exceptional tonal focus and interpretive intensity” by the Cleveland Plain Dealer. For 30 years, the quartet has performed throughout the world on the most prestigious concert stages, earning accolades from critics and audiences alike. Based in Austin, TX, and thriving on the area’s storied music scene, the Miró Quartet takes pride in finding new ways to communicate with audiences of all backgrounds while cultivating the longstanding tradition of chamber music.
Poiesis Quartet
An emerging young “ensemble to watch” (Hyde Park Herald), The Poiesis Quartet is the 2023 Grand Prize winner of the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition and winner of the 2024 Concert Artists Guild Competition. Founded during Oberlin Conservatory’s Advanced Quartet Seminar program in Fall 2022, within their first year playing together they also received Fischoff’s Senior Strings Gold Medal and the Lift Every Voice prizes, and Gold Medal and BIPOC Prize at the 2023 St. Paul String Quartet Competition. In 2023, the Quartet completed an international tour in Uruguay as well as in the midwestern U.S. as part of their Fischoff Gold Medal prize. Recently, they were a featured ensemble at the 2024 Chamber Music America conference in New York City. The Quartet was also lauded as “agile collaborators” with an “extraordinary, honeyed group sound” (Cleveland Classical) for performances of a new song cycle by Rick Stout with mezzo-soprano Nancy Maultsby. The Poiesis Quartet is the current Graduate Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM).