Music Haven in the New York Times
The central vehicle for achieving Music Haven’s goals is the Haven String Quartet, its resident ensemble. The group — Tina Hadari and Yaira Matyakubova on violins, Colin Benn on viola and Matthew Beckmann on cello — performs, alone or with students, at nearly all of the organization’s concerts. On Monday, the group will perform two pieces on its own: the “Lyric Quartet,” a three-part suite in the Debussy mode written in 1960 by the African-American composer William Grant Still, and "Rosa Parks" part of “A Civil Rights Reader,” an ongoing project of the Haitian-American violinist and composer Daniel Bernard Roumain. Both performances will be firsts for the quartet. The decision to focus on Mr. Roumain, 40, who seems as comfortable writing string quartets as he was appearing with Lady Gaga on “American Idol," is an apt one. Told of Music Haven’s decision to play “Parks,” he expressed appreciation, noting that the piece was his fifth for string quartet, and a sixth had been commissioned by Community MusicWorks in Providence, RI—the organization Ms. Hadari cited as a model for her group. Read the entire article here. |
