THE JOSÉ WHITE STRING QUARTET
Thursday, January 29th at 8:00 p.m.

Silvia Santa Maria, first violin
Sandra Diaz, second violin
Sergio Carrillo, viola
Orlando Espinosa, violoncello

One of the more exciting chamber music groups to become available to U.S. sponsors in recent years is a string quartet made up of four Latin American musicians who reside in Mexico. Join them on Thursday, January 29th, for an evening of impassioned chamber music. The program will be an eclectic blend of classical and Latin American music, and will end with the monumental Schumann Piano Quintet in E-flat, featuring guest pianist Lynn Raley of the Millsaps performing arts faculty.

The Cuarteto José White came into existence in the mid-1990s and began rehearsing and building repertoire. With three of its members having been born in Cuba (the other in California), the ensemble decided to choose a name in tribute to José White. White is indisputably Cuba's greatest violinist of the nineteenth and early twentieth century, the only one to have a world-class career based in Europe and an inspiration to countless string players of Central and South America for many generations. The quartet's formal debut was during the 1997-98 season at the notable Chamber Music Festival San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, followed by performances at major venues throughout Mexico and Canada. In 2000, the quartet won first prize in Mexico's leading international chamber music competition, the Premio Nacional de Mùsica de Cámara. The ensemble has participated in workshops and masterclasses by the Fine Arts, Lark, Ying, and Shanghai quartets, as well as the Borodin Trio.

In spite of their youth and the fact of the recent founding of the quartet, it is certainly one of the best string quartets in Latin America; and what's more, because of the members' talents and dedication, its potential is enormous. - Jerry Horner, violist