Sep 15, 2023
Avalon String Quartet, with mezzo-soprano Julia Bentley, will open the 2023-2024 Friends
of Good Music performance season at St. Bonaventure University’s Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts with a performance at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 22.
This special program, titled “For Such a Time as This,” features the New York premiere of a new work by composer Stacy Garrop, with a libretto by Jerre Dye, based on texts from the biblical Book of Esther. The artists will also perform the
rarely heard work “Folk Songs in Counter Point” by American composer Florence Price as well as Schubert’s famous quartet “Death and the Maiden.”
Based in Chicago, Avalon String Quartet is the quartet-in-residence at Northern Illinois University School of Music. They have performed at major venues including Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, the 92nd Street Y, and Bargemusic in New York; the Library
of Congress and National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.; Wigmore Hall in London, England; and Herkulessaal in Munich, Germany. Other performances include appearances at the Bath International Music Festival, Aldeburgh Festival, Caramoor, La Jolla
Chamber Music Society, NPR’s St. Paul Sunday, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Dame Myra Hess Concerts, Los Angeles Music Guild, and the Ravinia Festival.
Mezzo-soprano Bentley performs frequently with Chicago’s many fine ensembles including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Chicago Opera Theater and the popular ensemble Eighth Blackbird. She has recorded on the Albany, Cedille
and Tingtangel labels.
This performance is partly sponsored by SDG Music Foundation of Chicago.
Additional performances in the 2023-2024 Friends of Good Music season include:
- 3 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 15: Western New York Chamber Orchestra with conductor Glen Cortese and forte-piano soloist Daniel Maltz.
- 3 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 5: Buffalo Chamber Players, composed of players from Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and other distinguished area musicians.
- 4 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 10: Tomaseen Foley’s “A Celtic Christmas.”
- 3 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 28, 2024: Jazz pianist Konrad Paszkudzki in “A Concert for Marianne.”
- 7:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 16, 2024: Duo Cavatina with Eugenia Moliner on flute and Denis Azabagic on guitar.
- 7:30 p.m. Friday, March 22, 2024: Balourdet Quartet, winners of the 2022 Concert Artists Guild International Competition.
- 3 p.m. Sunday, April 7, 2024: Caña Dulce y Caña Brava, featuring the music, poetry, dance and traditional attire of Veracruz, Mexico.
For detailed information about all of the performances visit the Quick Center for the Arts’ Performing Arts Series webpage at
www.sbu.edu/qcaperformances.
Single concert tickets are $20 at full price, $16 for senior citizens and St. Bonaventure employees, and $5 for students.
Season subscriptions are also available. A basic subscription (any six concerts) is $102 at full price, $84 for senior citizens and SBU employees, and $27 for students. Seven- and eight-concert subscriptions are also available.
For tickets and information, call The Quick Center at (716) 375-2494.
For each Friends of Good Music performance, The Quick Center will open its galleries one hour before the performance and keep them open throughout the intermission. Regular gallery hours are noon to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, and noon to 4 p.m. Saturday
and Sunday.
Museum admission is free and open to the public year-round. For more information, visit www.sbu.edu/quickcenter.
Accompanying photo of Avalon String Quartet by Todd Rosenbert
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About the University: The nation’s first Franciscan university, St. Bonaventure University is a community committed to transforming the lives of our students inside and outside the classroom, inspiring in them a lifelong commitment to service
and citizenship. St. Bonaventure was named the #5 regional university value in the North in U.S. News and World Report’s 2022 college rankings edition.