The first concert the 53rd Sitka Summer Music Festival kicks off with the Arianna String Quartet & Grammy-winning cellist, Zuill Bailey. The program features music by Schubert, Tchaikovsky, and Arensky. The Arensky Quartet is voiced for violin, viola, and two cellos instead of the standard string quartet voicing of two violins, viola, and cello.
Program*
Franz Schubert - String Quartet No. 9 in G minor
Anton Arensky - String Quartet No. 2 in A minor
—intermission—
Piotr Tchaikovsky - String Quartet No. 2 in F Major, Op. 22
*Programs and artists for the summer festival subject to change
Hailed for their outstanding musicianship, the Arianna String Quartet has established itself as one of America's finest chamber ensembles. Their performances have been praised for “tonal warmth, fastidious balance and expressive vitality” (Chicago Tribune) and “emotional commitment and fluent virtuosity,” (Pretoria News, South Africa). Formed in 1992, the ASQ garnered national attention by winning the Grand Prize in the Fischoff Chamber Music Competition, First Prize in both the Coleman and Carmel Chamber Music Competitions, and were Laureates in the Bordeaux International String Quartet Competition.
The Arianna Quartet has appeared throughout North America, in South America, Europe, Asia, and South Africa. They have collaborated with many of the world’s most celebrated musicians, including members of the Vermeer, Tokyo, Cleveland and Juilliard Quartets, and their live performances have been heard on National Public Radio’s “Performance Today,” and “Live from Music Mountain”, which broadcasts to 125 stations in the U.S. and to 35 countries. The ASQ has recorded for Albany Records and Urtext Digital Classics, and extensively with Centaur Records. In addition to their critically acclaimed recording of the two string quartets of Janácek (“These performances of the Arianna String Quartet demonstrate how technical excellence, in alliance with imagination and the human heart, can come to create something truly transcendent.”-Fanfare), the ASQ has also recently completed their recordings of the Complete String Quartets of Beethoven (“I can’t stop listening to these performances. They thrill me, enthrall me, and arouse emotional responses in me of an intensity that can’t be described.”-Fanfare).
The members of the Arianna String Quartet serve on the faculty at the University of Missouri-St. Louis as professors of violin, viola, and cello. On the UMSL campus, the Arianna Quartet presents their own concert series, and also enriches the academic experience of students outside of the Music Department by visiting classes in physics, business, history, philosophy, art, and language to actively demonstrate the interdisciplinary connections between music and these seemingly disparate disciplines. The ASQ also presents an interdisciplinary performance and lecture series “First Mondays with the ASQ”, at KWMU, St. Louis Public Radio. The Arianna Quartet were recipients of the 2022 University of Missouri-St. Louis Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Collaborative Research and Creativity.
For over ten years, the Arianna Quartet has directed the Intensive Quartet Program at the Festival of Music in Santa Catarina, Brazil, working every year with young professional quartets from throughout South America. Additional highlights for 2022-23 have included concerts throughout the United States, returns to Madeline Island Chamber Music (WI), the Music Mountain Concert Series (CT), the Cedar Valley Chamber Music Festival (IA), and performances at the Jazz and Classics Music Festival in Juneau, as well as concerts in Anchorage and Sitka (AK).
The Arianna String Quartet also hosts their own summer chamber music festival in St. Louis each June featuring young quartets and students from the US and abroad. More information about the Arianna Chamber Music Festival can be found at ariannacmf.org.
Zuill Bailey, widely considered one of the premiere cellists in the world, is a Grammy Award winning, internationally renowned soloist, recitalist, Artistic Director and teacher. His rare combination of celebrated artistry, technical wizardry and engaging personality has made him one of the most sought after and active cellists today.
Mr. Bailey has been featured with symphony orchestras and music festivals worldwide. He won the Best Solo Performance Grammy Award in 2017, for his recording of Michael Daugherty’s “Tales of Hemingway,” with the Nashville Symphony led by Giancarlo Guerrero. His extensive discography includes his newest release – the world premier recording of Ellen Taaffe Zwilich’s Cello Concerto with the Santa Rosa Symphony. In 2021 he released his second recording of the Bach Cello Suites for PS Audio’s Octave Records label, recorded and mixed in stereo and multichannel sound.
He appeared in a recurring role on the HBO series “Oz,” and has been heard on NPR’s “Morning Edition,” “Tiny Desk Concert,” “Performance Today,” “Saint Paul Sunday,” BBC’s “In Tune,” XM Radio’s “Live from Studio II,” Sirius Satellite Radio’s “Virtuoso Voices,” and his latest disc of Bach Suites was the disc of the week on Sirius’ Symphony Hall.
Mr. Bailey received his Bachelor’s Degree from the Peabody Conservatory where he was named the 2014 Johns Hopkins University Distinguished Alumni, and received a Master’s Degree from the Juilliard School. He performs on the “rosette” 1693 Matteo Gofriller Cello formerly owned by Mischa Schneider of the Budapest String Quartet.
He is the Artistic Director of El Paso Pro-Musica (Texas), the Sitka Summer Music Festival/Series and Cello Seminar, (Alaska), Juneau Jazz and Classics, (Alaska), the Northwest Bach Festival (Washington), Classical Inside Out Series- Mesa Arts Center (Arizona) and is Director of the Center for Arts Entrepreneurship and Professor of Cello at the University of Texas at El Paso.
The Sitka Music Festival, a 501 (c)(3) Nonprofit is Alaska's premier chamber music presenter with the mission of providing the finest classical music experience in Alaska through performance and education.