Spotlighting the fusion of Western Classical Traditions with Global Music and Performance Art

Ying Quartet
October 23, 2011
The Ying Quartet first came to professional prominence in the early 1990s during their years as resident quartet in the farm town of Jesup, Iowa, the first quartet involved in the National Endowment for the Arts Chamber Music Rural Residencies Program. This was the same program that brought the Chiara Quartet to Grand Forks in 2000. Formed by four siblings of an American-Chinese family, the Quartet taught summer workshops in Minot and performed several times at the North Dakota Museum of Art. They have become known for commissioning an array of Chinese American composers to bridge the gap between traditional Chinese music and the avant-garde, served up as Dim Sum, small tastes of new musical ideas. They are the Quartet-in-Residence at the Eastman School of Music.

Gao Hong and Butterfly
December 4, 2011
Gao Hong is a Chinese musical prodigy and master of the pear-shaped lute, the pipa. She grew up during the turbulent years of China's Cultural Revolution. A composer as well as a performance artist, Gao Hong settled in Minneapolis in the mid-1990s and went on to amass awards, commissions, and honors from around the world. Besides playing solo or with traditional Chinese music ensembles, Gao Hong also performs with jazz musicians and musicians from other cultures. Most recently, Gao Hong founded the group Butterfly with Nirmala Rajesekar a world-renowned Carnatic veena virtuoso and vocalist who hails from southern India, and cellist Michelle Kenney who spent many years in the New York City contemporary music scene before moving to Minneapolis.

HAHN-BIN
January 22, 2012
A special protégé of the legendary Itzhak Perlman, the dynamic twenty-three-year-old violin virtuoso HAHN-BIN fuses performance art with classical music in "extraordinary, intelligent and beautiful" performances (The Washington Post) of his "inspired, innovative and bracing" programs (The New York Times).

Was it a deal with the devil that made this young superstar become so incredibly talented? Was it the training from Itzhak Perlman? No explanation suffices. Brilliant, audacious, and exuberant Hahn-Bin mesmerized the sold-out crowd.
- The Huffington Post

Kinan Azmeh and Dinuk Wijeratne
February 19, 2012
One of Syria's most beloved musicians, clarinetist Kinan Azmeh will be joined on the piano by Sri Lankan-born Dinuk Wijeratne in a concert of Arabic music infused with Western sounds and rhythms drawn from both Jazz and classical. Hailed as a "virtuoso" by the New York Times and cited for his "incredibly rich sound" by the CBC, Kinan Azmeh is one of Syria's rising stars who is fast gaining international recognition. 

Canadian Dinuk Wijeratne was recently praised by the CBC as an artist "internationally respected for his virtuosity and sensitivity as a musician."

Dawn Avery and Thirza Defoe
March 25, 2012
Rarely are performers as at home at Lincoln Center as they are in a sweat lodge. Mohawk composer, cellist, vocalist, educator and Grammy-nominated performer Dawn Avery is equally comfortable with either. She has sung and played with musical luminaries from Luciano Pavarotti to Sting, from R.C. Nakai to her teacher John Cage. She will perform her own compositions and works from the North American Indian Cello Project. Avery will be joined by Thirza Defoe. Defoe, of Ojibwe and Oneide tribes of Northern Wisconsin, is widely known as a hoop dancer and storyteller.