Five Boroughs Music Festival Presents Ivalas Quartet on October 17

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
PR Contact: Katlyn Morahan | Morahan Arts & Media 
katlyn@morahanartsandmedia.com | 646.378.9386

Five Boroughs Music Festival Presents 
Ivalas Quartet in Fate and Yearning at the 
Sugar Hill Museum of Art & Storytelling on October 17

5bmf.org

New York, NY (September 12, 2024) — New York City’s Five Boroughs Music Festival (5BMF) continues its 2024-25 season with the debut of the Ivalas Quartet on Thursday, October 17, 2024 at 6:00 p.m. at the Sugar Hill Museum of Art & Storytelling in Upper Manhattan. 

Presented as part of the “Thursday on the Hill” series in a new partnership with the Sugar Hill Museum, 5BMF showcases the Ivalas Quartet, an ensemble dedicated to the celebration of BIPOC voices and enhancing the classical music world by consistently spotlighting past and present BIPOC composers. The program, titled Fate and Yearning, features works by Mendelssohn, Beethoven, and NYC-based Black American composer Alvin Singleton.

Carrying on its mission to make great chamber music programming accessible to all of New York City’s five boroughs, 5BMF continues its season of diverse programming with The New Consort performing their program RETURN / REVIVE: A Meditation on Grief, Hope, and Community on Friday, November 1, 2024 at 7:30 p.m. at Brooklyn Art Haus and Saturday, November 2, 2024 at 6:00 p.m. at Trinity Lutheran Church on Staten Island.

Concert Information
5BMF Presents IVALAS QUARTET: FATE AND YEARNING
Thursday, October 17, 2024 at 6:00 p.m.
Sugar Hill Museum of Art & Storytelling | 898 St Nicholas Ave | New York, NY 10032
Tickets: Free, RSVP required
Link: https://5bmf.org/ivalas-quartet/ 

Program:
“Fate and Yearning” - works by Mendelssohn, Beethoven, and Alvin Singleton.

Artists:
Ivalas Quartet
     Reuben Kebede, violin
     Tiani Butts, violin
     Marcus Stevenson, viola
     Pedro Sanchez, cello

About Ivalas Quartet
Hailed by The Strad for playing with “tremendous heart and beauty,” the Ivalas Quartet has been changing the face of classical music since its inception at the University of Michigan in 2017. Dedicated to the celebration of BIPOC voices, Ivalas seeks to enhance the classical music world by consistently spotlighting past and present BIPOC composers such as Jessie Montgomery, Daniel Bernard Roumain, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, and Eleanor Alberga. 

The Ivalas Quartet had the pleasure of performing George Walker’s Lyric for Strings at Carnegie Hall in January of 2020. Later that year, they worked in collaboration with Walker’s son to program his String Quartet No. 1 with Friends of Chamber Music Denver and the Colorado Music Festival. In 2021, they created the first recording of Carlos Simon’s Warmth From Other Suns for string quartet under Lara Downes’ digital label Rising Sun Music.

Currently, The Ivalas Quartet is the Graduate Resident String Quartet at The Juilliard School in New York City, where they study under the Juilliard String Quartet. They were previously in residence at the University of Colorado-Boulder under the mentorship of the Takács Quartet. 

The Ivalas Quartet has been featured on various concert series, including Community Concerts at Second in Baltimore, Friends of Chamber Music Denver, Detroit’s WRCJ Classical Brunch, the inaugural Detroit Music Weekend, the Davidson College Concert Series in North Carolina, the Crested Butte Music Festival, the Walla Walla Chamber Music Festival, the Great Lakes Center for the Arts, the Blue Sage Center for the Arts, and CU Presents concert series where the quartet performed alongside the Takács Quartet in 2020 and 2022. Ivalas won the first prize at the 2019 WDAV Young Chamber Musicians Competition in Davidson, NC, as well as the grand prize at the 2022 Coltman Chamber Music Competition in Austin, TX.

The quartet also keeps a busy calendar in the summer, performing in past seasons at the Bowdoin International Music Festival, the Aspen Music Festival and School, the Colorado Music Festival, Music In the Vineyards, Madeline Island Chamber Music, and the Anchorage Chamber Music Festival. This past summer Ivalas returned to the University of Michigan in a mentorship role, coaching student groups at Center Stage Strings.

Ivalas was named Caramoor’s 2022-23 Ernst Stiefel String Quartet-in-Residence and has been presenting multiple concerts at the Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts. In the fall of 2022, Ivalas appeared at the Austin Chamber Music Center, Newport Classical in Rhode Island, CU Presents Takács Series, Schneider Concerts in NY, and the MacPhail Center for Music in MN. In May of 2023, they presented their first full program at Carnegie Hall, titled First Light.

The members of the Ivalas Quartet have a shared dedication to their roles as educators. Through the Sphinx Organization, Ivalas has presented educational programming in the Metro Detroit area, with an emphasis on community engagement in schools with Black and Latinx communities. In Colorado, they developed a partnership with El Sistema Colorado and were a part of the Aspen Music Festival Musical Connections program. In their new home of New York City, the quartet is enjoying working with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center on their Chamber Music Beginnings program.

The Ivalas Quartet has nurtured students from the early stages of their musical journey to the collegiate level, with coaching experience including residencies at the University of Northern Iowa, the University of Central Arkansas, Madeline Island Chamber Music, and the MacPhail Center for Music in Minneapolis. In New York City, they coach student groups at The Juilliard School. https://www.ivalasquartet.com/ 

About Five Boroughs Music Festival
Since 2007, Five Boroughs Music Festival (5BMF) has brought virtuosic chamber music performances of the highest caliber to every borough of NYC, cultivating new audiences for the genre and encouraging music lovers to look beyond Manhattan for outstanding performances. Lauded as “imaginative” by The New York Times, “enterprising” by The New Yorker, and “vital” by WQXR’s Operavore blog, 5BMF’s commitment to musical outreach and diverse programming has distinguished it as a standout presence in the New York City arts community from its earliest days.

5BMF’s artist roster of over 600 individual performers and ensembles is comprised of talented emerging artists and distinguished musicians alike, representing a diverse range of musical genres and styles. Its more than 70 venues are just as eclectic and have included performing arts spaces, cultural centers, and historic New York City landmarks such as Federal Hall, Pregones Theater, Flushing Town Hall, King Manor Museum, Brooklyn Historical Society, the Alice Austen House, and the Staten Island Museum, to name merely a few.

As champions of new music, 5BMF has commissioned over 70 composers and presented world premieres of their works all across New York City, most notably the borough-wide tours of its quinquennial commissioning project, the Five Borough Songbook Volumes I, II and III. 5BMF’s outreach initiatives continue to expand every year and have included program-related interactive lectures and discussions, public masterclasses with world-renowned performing artists, and free public programming. Learn more at www.5bmf.org.

Images at the top of the release by Emily Walker Photography

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