Cypress String Quartet to present new work at UF concert

March 2, 2007

GAINESVILLE, FL –– The Cypress String Quartet will present a new work by composer George Tsontakis during at concert at 4 p.m. March 11 in the University Auditorium.

The work, titled “String Quartet #5,” was written in memory of George Rochberg, an American composer of contemporary music. Tsontakis was the winner of the 2005 Grawmeyer Award for Music Composition, arguably the highest honor for a living composer. In 2006, Tsontakis was named the recipient of the Charles Ives Living by the Academy of Arts and Letters.

For more than a decade, the San Francisco-based Cypress String Quartet has been lauded for its superb performances, commitment to commissioning new works and its educational outreach efforts. The Cypress String Quartet was featured in Chamber Music Magazine as a “Generation X ensemble to watch.”

Besides its educational programs, the quartet has built a respectable body of new works through its commissioning efforts. Two of the composers with whom the quartet has worked are Grammy award winners for Best Classical Composition: Benjamin Lees (2003) and Jennifer Higdon (2004). Four of the works commissioned by the Cypress String Quartet appear on Chamber Music America’s list of 101 Great American Ensemble Works. During this season, composer Daniel Asia, a recipient of a Meet the Composer/Reader’s Digest Consortium Commission and Guggenheim Fellowship, will compose a new work for the quartet.

As quartet-in-residence at San José State University, the quartet serves the university and greater Silicon Valley through its ground-breaking Call & Response educational program. The Call & Response program has impacted thousands of students throughout the Bay Area, engaging them in educational activities based around classical and chamber music. Tsontakis’s String Quartet #5 was commissioned by the Cypress String Quartet as a part of its innovative Call & Response program, which combines the performance of traditional chamber music repertoire with newly commissioned works and education outreach programs.

For its outreach efforts, the quartet was named an Exemplary Arts Educator by the California Arts Council and received the McGraw-Hill Companies’ Robert Sherman Award for Music Education and Community Outreach.

The group recently premiered Inspired by America, a multimedia collaboration with best-selling author Jacob Needleman.

Tickets are available by calling the Phillips Center Box Office at 352-392-2787 or 800-905-ARTS or by calling Ticketmaster at 904-353-3309. Orders may be faxed to 352-846-1562. Tickets are also available in person at the Phillips Center Box Office, University Box Office at the University of Florida Reitz Student Union and all Ticketmaster outlets; and on the Web at www.ticketmaster.com.

The Phillips Center Box Office is open from noon to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and two hours before performances.