Met Museum to Feature Chiara String Quartet as Part of MET MUSEUM PRESENTS, Today

New York, NY - The Metropolitan Museum of Art presents 2015-2016 Quartet in Residence, theChiara String Quartet, in its second Met Museum Presents concert of the season on Friday,November 13, 2015 at 7pm in The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium (1000 Fifth Ave). A concert of music made by and for old friends, the program, titled Piano Quintets with Simone Dinnerstein,features the New York premiere of Jefferson Friedman's new piano quintet The Heart Wakes Into for the Chiara and pianist Simone Dinnerstein, paired with Brahms' Piano Quintet in F minor. The Chiara Quartet's residency will continue on Friday, March 18, 2016 with Bartók and Frank and on May 6, 2016 with Death of the Maiden.

The Chiara Quartet has been championing composer Jefferson Friedman's music since its earliest days, developing a deep and symbiotic creative collaboration. The quartet's recording of his String Quartet No. 3 was nominated for a Grammy in 2011, and praised by the San Francisco Chronicle for its "lush ensemble sound that brings out the hidden depths of Friedman's harmonic language." Friedman's new quintet for the Chiara and pianist Simone Dinnerstein, The Heart Wakes Into, is composed in six short movements. The combination of the individual movement titles forms a six-line poem written by Margaret LeMay: The Lights of Others Cut into the Hills / The Way in Which Touches / Dawn Alone Being / Rent and Want / Is Having, Had, Departed / The Fold of Bald Wings. Each movement is a poetic work unto itself as well as a portrayal of a shifting mental state. The work was commissioned by the Library of Congress and premiered in December 2014.

Renowned for bringing fresh excitement to traditional string quartet repertoire as well as for creating insightful interpretations of new music, the Chiara String Quartet captivates its audiences throughout the country. The Chiara (Rebecca Fischer and Hyeyung Julie Yoon, violins; Jonah Sirota, viola; Gregory Beaver, cello) has established itself as among America's most respected ensembles, lauded for its "highly virtuosic, edge-of-the-seat playing" (The Boston Globe). They are currently Hixson-Lied Artists-in-Residence at the Glenn Korff School of Music at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and were the Blodgett Artists-in-Residence at Harvard University from 2008-2014. For the 2015-2016 season, the Chiara is the Quartet in Residence at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Now in its 16th season, the Chiara has adopted a new way of performing: from memory, without printed sheet music. For almost all of the Quartet's upcoming concerts, they will be performing entirely "by heart." Of the process, the Chiara's cellist Gregory Beaver says, "Each member must find a way to know the music inside and out - it has brought us much closer together in our music-making." After memorizing a work, the Quartet is rewarded with deeply gratifying performances where each member feels fully present in the moment, truly performing with heart, by heart.

The Chiara is currently recording Bartók by Heart, a 2-CD set featuring Bartók's six string quartets, played entirely from memory, slated for release in 2016 on Azica. The quartet's latest album, Brahms by Heart, was released on Azica in March 2014. The 2-CD set includes Brahms' String Quartets and his String Quintet No. 2 in G Major, Op. 111 with violist Roger Tapping. The album, played "with infectious charm, exultant phrasing and nostalgic affection" (The Strad), was recorded by Grammy Award-winning producer Judith Sherman at the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall.

The Chiara's recent honors include the nomination of its recording of Jefferson Friedman's String Quartet No. 3 for a Grammy Award in 2011 and the ASCAP/Chamber Music America Award for Adventurous Programming for the 2010-2011 season. Past awards include a top prize at the Paolo Borciani International Competition, winning the Astral Artistic Services National Audition, and winning First Prize at the Fischoff Chamber Music Competition. Awarded the Guarneri Quartet Residency Award for artistic excellence by Chamber Music America, the Chiara Quartet has also been the recipient of grants from Meet The Composer, The Aaron Copland Foundation, and the Amphion Foundation.

In addition to the Chiara Quartet's regular performances in major concert halls across the country, including Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall, Carnegie Hall, Philadelphia's Kimmel Center, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the National Gallery in Washington DC, the ensemble was one of the first string quartets to perform in alternative venues for chamber music performance. The Chiara Quartet has performed innovative concerts in non-classical spaces including (le) Poisson Rouge and Galapagos Art Space in New York, The Tractor Tavern in Seattle, Avant Garden in Houston, and the Hideout in Chicago, among many others. Recent highlights of the Chiara Quartet's international performances include extensive tours of China, Korea, and Sweden as well as performances at the American Academy in Rome, the Montreal Chamber Music Festival, and of Steve Reich's Different Trains in Munich.

The Chiara Quartet is widely sought out for its innovative work in engagement with urban and rural communities of all ages. In 2012 the Chiara appeared with the University Musical Society in Ann Arbor, Michigan as residents in the community, performing in unusual venues including a vacant storefront and a Toyota factory. In 2011, the Chiara was the first judge of the online string quartet competition "The Quartet Project Challenge," an opportunity for young quartets from around the world to post performances on YouTube and receive comments from a professional quartet. In the 2011-12 season, the Chiara presented a concert series at Matt Talbot Kitchen and Outreach, a unique organization serving the working poor and homeless in Lincoln, Nebraska.

In addition to Brahms by Heart and the forthcoming Bartók by Heart, the complete Chiara discography includes Jefferson Friedman's String Quartets Nos. 2 and 3 on New Amsterdam Records, the Mozart and Brahms clarinet quintets with Håkan Rosengren for SMS Classical, and the world premiere recordings of Robert Sirota's Triptych and Gabriela Lena Frank's Leyendas: An Andean Walkabout on the Quartet's own New Voice Singles label. The Chiara is also featured on Nadia Sirota's debut recording for New Amsterdam Records, first things first.

The Chiara has been committed to the creation of new music for string quartet since its inception, and has commissioned composers including Gabriela Lena Frank, Jefferson Friedman, Nico Muhly, Daniel Ott, Huang Ruo, Robert Sirota, Hans Tutschku, Carl Voss, and Michael Wittgraf, among others. Recent collaborators in performance include The Juilliard String Quartet, Joel Krosnick, Roger Tapping, Todd Palmer, Robert Levin, Simone Dinnerstein, Norman Fischer, Nadia Sirota, and Paul Katz, as well as members of the Orion, Ying, Cavani, and Pacifica Quartets.

In the summer, the Chiara Quartet is in residence at Greenwood Music Camp as well as the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's Chamber Music Institute. The Chiara trained and taught at The Juilliard School, mentoring for two years with the Juilliard Quartet, as recipients of the Lisa Arnhold Quartet Residency. Chiara (key-ARE-uh) is an Italian word, meaning "clear, pure, or light."

About Simone Dinnerstein: American pianist Simone Dinnerstein is a searching and inventive artist who is motivated by a desire to find the musical core of every work she approaches. NPR reports, "She compels the listener to follow her in a journey of discovery filled with unscheduled detours . . . She's actively listening to every note she plays, and the result is a wonderfully expressive interpretation." The New York-based pianist gained an international following because of the remarkable success of her recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations, which she raised the funds to record. Released in 2007 on Telarc, it ranked No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard Classical Chart in its first week of sales and was named to many "Best of 2007" lists including those of The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and The New Yorker. Four solo albums that Dinnerstein has released since then have also topped the classical charts. Dinnerstein was among the top ten bestselling artists of 2014 on the Billboard Classical Chart. Her latest album is Broadway-Lafayette, which celebrates the time-honored transatlantic link between France and America and includes Ravel's Piano Concerto in G Major, Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue and Philip Lasser's The Circle and the Child: Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, recorded with conductor Kristjan Järvi and the MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra.

Dinnerstein's performance schedule has taken her around the world since her triumphant New York recital debut at Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall in 2005 to venues including the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Vienna Konzerthaus, Berlin Philharmonie, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and London's Wigmore Hall; festivals that include the Lincoln Center Mostly Mozart Festival, the Aspen, Verbier, and Ravinia festivals, and the Stuttgart Bach Festival; and performances with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Dresden Philharmonic, Staatskapelle Berlin, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Czech Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Minnesota Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Orchestra of St. Luke's, Kristjan Järvi's Absolute Ensemble, Montreal Symphony Orchestra, Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, Danish National Symphony Orchestra, and the Tokyo Symphony. Dinnerstein has played concerts throughout the U.S. for the Piatigorsky Foundation, an organization dedicated to bringing classical music to non-traditional venues, and has played at the Avoyelles Correctional Center in Louisiana and the Maryland Correctional Institution for Women. Dedicated to her community, in 2009 Dinnerstein founded Neighborhood Classics, a concert series open to the public hosted by New York public schools which raises funds for the schools. Dinnerstein is a graduate of The Juilliard School where she was a student of Peter Serkin. She also studied with Solomon Mikowsky at the Manhattan School of Music and in London with Maria Curcio. Simone Dinnerstein lives in Brooklyn, New York with her husband and son. She is managed by Ekonomisk Mgmt and is a Sony Classical artist. www.simonedinnerstein.com

About Met Museum Presents: The live arts series at The Metropolitan Museum of Art that explores contemporary innovations through the lens of the Museum's exhibitions and unparalleled gallery spaces with singular performances and talks. Met Museum Presents invites artists, performers, curators, and thought-leaders to explore and collaborate within The Met, leading with groundbreaking commissions, world premieres, and site-specific durational performances.

For more information and tickets, visit www.metmuseum.org/tickets or call 212-570-3949. Tickets are also available at the Great Hall Box Office, which is open Monday-Saturday, 11:00 a.m.-3:30 p.m.

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