The Westport Arts Center continues to demonstrate its innovative, proactive programming skills with the Composers Project, a series of concerts and conversations that celebrate the 21st century composer and musician. On Saturday July 19, 2008, the Biava Quartet will present Kevin Puts' String Quartet No. 1 known as “Dark Vigil”. This piece was written in 1999 in response to the tragic school shootings at Columbine High School. A pre-concert talk at 7:30 p.m. precedes the performance at Westport Town Hall.
The Biava Quartet consisting of violinists Austin Hartman and Hyunsu Ko, violist Mary Persin, and cellist Jason Calloway, act as the graduate quartet in residence, work as teaching assistants to the Juilliard Quartet and own the prestigious title of Lisa Arnhold Quartet in Residency at the Juilliard School. The Quartet had a similar role with the Tokyo String Quartet at Yale University and was the first group to complete the New England Conservatory's training program concerning the string quartet. In addition to the standard repertory, they are committed to contemporary music and are well-versed in the the music of American composers Mason Bates, William Bolcom, John Harbison, Ezra Laderman, and Stacy Garrop.
Their diversity is evident with their playing in a dramatization of the life of Emily Dickinson set to the music of Amy Beach with the Ensemble for the Romantic Century, as well as performing at the inaugural concerts in Washington, D.C. of Pro Musica Hebraica, a new organization founded for the dissemination of Jewish art music.
Kevin Puts' accolades include a 1999 Barlow International Prize for Orchestral, a 2001 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, a 2001-2002 Rome Prize and the 2003 Benjamin H. Danks Award for Excellence in Orchestral Composition of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He has a Master's degree from Yale University and a Doctor of Musical Arts from the Eastman School of Music. He holds the title of Composer-in-Residence for the Fort Worth Symphony.
Edvard Grieg,'s String Quartet in G minor and Cesar Franck's Piano Quintet with pianist Eric Huebner will round out this exceptional program.
