Roger Zare’s Gamma For String Quartet Will Premiere in Sarasota

 Artist Series Concerts presents its final soirée concert of the season, Lasting Impressions, on April 6 (April 5 is sold out) at 4:00 p.m. The delicate beauty of impressionist music forms the heart of this captivating program. Michael Turkell, principal second violin of Sarasota Orchestra, joins forces with Florida Orchestra assistant principal cello Victor Minke Huls and Lincoln Center Stage Quintet pianist Maria Parrini in a program that includes violin and piano sonatas by Enescu and Fauré, and Ravel’s duo for violin and cello. Tickets are $70 and include light refreshments at the Fischer/Weisenborne Residence. 

DragonBoot Quartet performs April 12, 4:00 p.m. at First Presbyterian Church. Grand Prize winners of the Coltman Chamber Music Competition, the members of the DragonBoot Quartet – Cate Carson, violin; Katya Moeller, violin; Sydney Whipple, viola; and Lila Holyoke, cello – are current students in the Honors Chamber Music Program at the Juilliard School. They will present the world premiere performance of composer Roger Zare’s Gamma for string quartet during this concert. Zare is a Sarasota native who began composing at age 14 and was the first Artist Series Concerts of Sarasota scholarship winner in 2003. Since then, Zare has been awarded the ASCAP Nissim Prize, three BMI Student Composer awards, an ASCAP Morton Gould Award, a New York Youth Symphony First Music Commission, the 2008 American Composers Orchestra Underwood Commission, a Copland House Residency Award, the 2023 International Clarinet Association Composition Competition, and a Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. The DragonBoot Quartet program also includes Haydn’s String Quartet Op. 33, No. 1, the work that stole the show at their Coltman Competition Grand Prize-winning performance; Jessie Montgomery’s Voodoo Dolls; Janáček’s String Quartet No. 2, “Intimate Letters”; and more. Tickets are $50 for general seating and $70 for VIP seating.

Voice of the Cello, on April 21, 7:30 p.m. at First Congregational Church, closes the Top Shelf Tuesdays series for the season. Canadian cellist Cameron Crozman and fellow Canadian pianist Meagan Milatz return to Sarasota for a much-anticipated encore. Crozman recently won the Fernand-Lindsay Award from Fondation Père-Lindsay, one of the most prestigious awards for classical music in Quebec and Canada. Milatz is the recent winner of the prestigious 2025-2028 Mécénat Musica Prix Goyer and the 2024 Prix Opus “Discovery of the Year.” For this program, the pair will perform music by Debussy and Gershwin, and a piece written for them by composer Graham Campbell. Following intermission, they will be joined by violinist Daniel Jordan and violist Margaret Dyer Harris in a performance of Robert Schumann’s groundbreaking Piano Quartet in E-flat Major. Tickets are $50 for general admission and $70 for VIP seating.