The Fry Street Quartet

Hailed as “a triumph of ensemble playing” (New York Times), the Fry Street Quartet has perfected a “blend of technical precision and scorching spontaneity” (Strad). Since securing the Millennium Grand Prize at the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, the Fry Street Quartet has reached audiences from Carnegie Hall (via rural North Carolina) to Sarajevo and Jerusalem, exploring the medium of the string quartet and its life-affirming potential with “profound understanding, …depth of expression, and stunning technical astuteness” (Deseret Morning News).

The Fry Street Quartet began their international career as cultural ambassadors with a tour of the Balkan States, sponsored by Carnegie Hall and the U.S. Department of State. Programming for the American-themed tour featured the European debut of J. Mark Scearce’s ‘Y2K’, commissioned for the Fry Street with a grant from Meet the Composer. Subsequent international appearances have included the ProQuartet Academy at Pont- Royal, France, the Prague Chamber Festival and Trutnov Autumn Festival in the Czech Republic and the Mozart Gemeinde Series and Kulturvereinigung Oberschutzen in Austria.

“Equally at home in the classic repertoire of Mozart and Beethoven or of contemporary music” (Palm Beach Daily News), the quartet recently debuted its innovative “From Prodigy to Master” series, pairing early and late works of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, and Mendelssohn with engaging modern compositions inspired by the featured “masters” of the quartet genre. Modern works include the lesser-known complete string quartets of Benjamin Britten, as well as a world premiere of “st qt,” dedicated to the Fry Street by Thomas McFaul, a composer known throughout the world for his instantly recognizable “Meow Mix” advertising jingle. The series provides a unique and intimate setting for concert-goers, with lectures, discussions, and audience involvement. In collaboration with cutting-edge sound designers Ray Kimber and Graemme Brown, the FSQ’s fourth and fifth commercial recordings present early and late quartets of Haydn and Beethoven in audiophile recording quality that utilizes revolutionary IsoMike™ and SACD technology.

The Fry Street’s collaborations include performances with pianists Misha Dichter, Wu Han and Joseph Kalichstein, and upcoming performances of the Schubert Cello Quintet with Cleveland Quartet founding member Paul Katz. Other memorable collaborations include performances with the Mendelssohn String Quartet at the 92nd St. Y, with Donald Weilerstein at the New School in New York, and with pianists Jerome Lowenthal and Ursula Oppens, violinist Nurit Pacht, and soprano Toni Arnold as the quartet in residence with New York City’s Alliance Français. The quartet enjoys frequent visits to Harrisburg, PA, as Market Square’s “Summermusic” Artists-in-Residence, and the Mozart Gemeinde chamber music series in Austria, where they have recently forged an exchange relationship between the University of Carinthia in Klagenfurt and Utah State University.

Recipients of a three-year “Rural Residencies” grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and Chamber Music America, the Fry Street Quartet fast became an integral part of cultural life in the small town of Hickory, North Carolina, while living, rehearsing, teaching, and performing more than 100 outreach concerts per year. During their tenure, the chamber music audience in Hickory jumped from 25 to over 300, and the elementary orchestra program more than doubled its enrollment. The quartet was instrumental in establishing a graduate string quartet program at Appalachian State University and designed an innovative middle school “Chamber Music Mentoring Program,” which drew public school children into the arts by teaching them to rehearse and perform string quartets. The Fry Street’s legacy remains in Hickory; as a result of their highly successful residency, the community has privately funded an ongoing quartet residency, embracing chamber music as an essential part of life in their small town.

The Fry Street Quartet continues to educate future generations of musicians in its position as Faculty Quartet in Residence at the Caine School of the Arts at Utah State University. In recognition of their fine work at Utah State, the Marie Eccles Caine Foundation has awarded the FSQ with the prestigious Caine Young Scholars Award, which provides substantial funding to promote teaching, research, and community outreach related to the fine arts.

Founded in Chicago in 1997 under the mentorship of Marc Johnson, cellist of the renowned Vermeer Quartet, the Fry Street received rave reviews as prizewinners at the Yellow Springs Competition and the Banff International String Quartet Competition. The quartet traveled to Israel to participate in the International “Encounters” Chamber Music Seminar, where they studied with Isaac Stern. Mr. Stern invited the quartet to the Isaac Stern Chamber Music Workshop in New York City, and subsequently arranged for the quartet’s Carnegie Hall debut. “Fry Street” was the location of the quartet’s first rehearsal space in the Chicago neighborhood once ruled by Al Capone. Apprehensive concertgoers can rest assured that there are only violins in those violin cases.
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