(adjacent to the Beatrice Wood Center for the Arts)
8585 Ojai-Santa Paula Rd. (in Upper Ojai)
Ojai, CA 93023 Detailed map and directions
Program
String Quartet No. 66 in G Major, Op. 77/1, H. 3/81 - Joseph Haydn
kenopsiac - Andrew Hsu
String Quartet No. 2 in A Minor, Op. 51 - Johannes Brahms
First Prize, 2015 Young Concert Artists International Auditions
First Prize, 2015 Coleman National Chamber Music Competition
Gold Medal, 2015 Fischoff Chamber Music Competition
Sander Buchman Debut Prize
Friends of Music Concerts Prize (NY)
Hayden’s Ferry Chamber Music Series Prize (AZ)
Paramount Theater Prize (VT)
THE NEW YORK TIMES: "From the first phrase, played with rich sound and wistful beauty, I knew this would be an eloquent
and probing performance. The Zorá played with melting sound and affecting impetuosity. In
Shostakovich’s String Quartet No. 9, an intense, fitful, brooding work, it was charming how these
young musicians from Thailand, South Korea, China and Spain so strongly conveyed the very
particular character of the hints of klezmer in the music."
OREGON ARTS WATCH: "They play like well-seasoned pros tuned into one another for years, but with so much exuberant
passion they practically fall out of their seats. They are the future of chamber music. These musicians
deserve all the prizes they continue to win. They are definitely on the rise with a bright future."
The Zorá String Quartet leapt to national attention in 2015, after capturing the Grand Prize and Gold Medal of the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, and First Prizes in the Coleman National Chamber Music and the Young Concert Artists International Auditions. The quartet has toured extensively ever since and last season, in addition to being named the Quartet-in-Residence at the Curtis Institute of Music, it was presented in New York and Washington, DC debuts in the Young Concert Artists Series followed by performances throughout the U.S. at Chamber Music Wilmington, the Lied Center of Kansas, the Paramount Theatre, Rockefeller University, Hayden’s Ferry Chamber Music Series, University of Florida Performing Arts, the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, and Chamber Music International.
The 2017-2018 season’s featured performances include engagements in Paris, Salzburg, Berlin and Munich as part of Curtis on Tour, in which it premieres a work by Andrew Hsu which was commissioned by the Curtis Institute of Music and written especially for the Zorá String Quartet, as well as Curtis on Tour performances in which it collaborates with artists including clarinetist David Shifrin. The Quartet also debuts at London’s Wigmore Hall, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, the Morgan Library & Museum in New York, and the Buffalo Chamber Music Society, and performs at Bravo! Vail, the Verbier Academy, the Evergreen Library and Museum, Chamber On The Mountain and Bryn Mawr College, as well as numerous educational programs at schools. The quartet’s performance at the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society will feature the ensemble playing quartets as well the Brahms String Sextet with cellist Peter Wiley and violist Roberto Diaz.
Selected to participate in the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Chamber Music Encounters program, concluding with a performance at Alice Tully Hall, the Zorá String Quartet has also appeared at Chamber Music Northwest, Oregon Music Festival, and the Emilia Romagna Festival. It participated in chamber music residencies at the Banff Centre, the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival and at the Center for Advanced Quartet Studies of the Aspen Music Festival, where it worked intensively with Earl Carlyss, the Takács Quartet, the Pacifica Quartet, and the American String Quartet.
Selected as the string quartet in residence to perform and study manuscripts at the Beethoven-Haus in Germany, the Zorás have also been champions of new works, having collaborated with Pulitzer-Prize-winning American composer Caroline Shaw and the NOTUS Contemporary Ensemble.
The Zorá String Quartet aspires to educate individual students, serve as mentors for collegiate-level string players, and initiate outreach projects to introduce new audiences to chamber music. It worked with the non-profit organization Reimagining Opera for Kids and has performed at the Wylie House Museum, Waldron Arts Center, and the Art Museum of IU Bloomington to better bridge the gap with the local community.
The Quartet’s members earned prestigious Chamber Music Performer’s Diplomas from the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, and served as the graduate quartet-in-residence at the Jacobs School of Music under the tutelage of the Pacifica Quartet and Atar Arad. The name “Zorá” was chosen by Bulgarian professor Kevork Mardirossian; it means “sunrise” in Bulgarian.
