The Cypress String Quartet will perform at Mary Baldwin University on Thursday, May 4, at 8:00 p.m. in Francis Auditorium. Tickets are $4.00 ($3.00/senior citizens) and can be reserved in advance by calling (540) 887-7294. Tickets are available at Blue Mountain Coffee and the Bookstack, and will also be available at the door. Francis Auditorium is located in the Pearce Science Center at the corner of Coalter and Frederick Streets in Staunton.
This special May Term recital will feature a number of pieces from Mozart and Beethoven. Lise Kieter, assistant professor of music at Mary Baldwin, will join the Quartet on piano for selections from Dmitri Shostakovich.
The Cypress String Quartet features Cecily Ward and Tom Stone on violin; Ann Gregg on viola; and Jennifer Kloetzel on cello. They have performed to growing acclaim throughout North America since their inception in 1996. Winners of the 1999 Chamber Music Yellow Springs Competition, the Quartet was featured in Chamber Music Magazine as a “Generation X ensemble to watch” and was recently nominated “Debut Artist of the Year” by National Public Radio’s “Performance Today.”
Committed to performance and education, the Cypress String Quartet inaugurated a community residency in Neskowin, Oregon, and presented programs to over 3,000 students in the Philadelphia area under the auspices of the Philadelphia Orchestra during the 1998-1999 season. This season the Quartet is launching its innovative “Call and Response” series in San Francisco, integrating performance and outreach through the commission of new works. In addition, the Quartet has presented educational programming and concerts in conjunction with the Ravinia Festival in Chicago and currently serves as faculty members at the Las Vegas Music Festival.
The ensemble has participated in public seminars with the Amadeus Quartet in London and the Juilliard Quartet in New York City. Having been in residence at the Banff Centre for the Arts in Canada, the Quartet has also held fellowships at the Aspen Music Festival Center for Advanced Quartet Studies and at the Summit Institute for Arts and Humanities. In addition, the ensemble has worked closely with cellist Bonnie Hampton, and with members of the Cleveland, Orion, Emerson, Mendelssohn, and Muir Quartets.
Cecily Ward began studying music in Salt Lake City, Utah at the age of four where her teachers included members of the Utah Symphony and the University of Utah music faculty. At thirteen, she attended the Interlochen Arts Academy in Interlochen, Michigan where she was concertmaster of the orchestra, and was first violinist of the Academy String Quartet. Ward went on to study the violin with Donald Weilerstein at the Eastman School of Music and at the Cleveland Institute of Music, and chamber music at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.
Tom Stone was born in Chicago where he studied music with Hilel Kagan. Stone pursued his musical studies by attending the Eastman School of Music in Rochester and the Cleveland Institute of Music. His major teachers have included Donald Weilerstein, Zvi Zeitlin, Gyorgy Sebok, Bonnie Hampton and Merry Peckham.
Originally from Racine, Wisconsin, Ann Gregg earned her master’s degree from Indiana University where she studied with Atar Arad and Tasso Adamopoulos. She also studied at Illinois Wesleyan University, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison with Sally Chisholm. Gregg has played in the Owensboro, Evansville, and Columbus Symphony Orchestras and has spent summers playing in the Spoleto, Italy Festival dei Due Mondi, the Festival at Sandpoint, and the Union Avenue Opera Theater of St. Louis.
A graduate of The Juilliard School and a Fulbright Grant winner, cellist Jennifer Kloetzel has concertized extensively in Europe and Asia, as well as across the United States. She has appeared as guest artist with The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and has collaborated with distinguished artists David Golub, Wu Han, Heiichiro Ohyama, Gary Hoffman and Paul Neubauer. She performed with pianist Andre Previn at the La Jolla Chamber Music Festival and was invited to appear as one of his select “Rising Stars” at the 1993 and 1994 Caramoor Festivals in New York.