So much of the great string quartet repertoire has come from Czech composers; there has come to be a deep appreciation among chamber music fans for what is known as “the Czech tradition.” The Zemlinksy Quartet has become a much-lauded example of that tradition, winning top prizes in international competitions and releasing a library of critically acclaimed recordings. In their Virginia Arts Festival debut, Van Cliburn Gold Medal-awarded pianist Olga Kern joins the ensemble for an evening of chamber classics, including Dvořák’s fiery Piano Quintet No. 2.

Zemlinsky Quartet website

Tickets are available through the Virginia Arts Festival website:

Use the promo code FELDMAN25 at checkout for a special Feldman price of $25 per adult ticket. Please note that you must enter the promo code before selecting a seat, and the discount only applies to full-price adult tickets.

Program: (subject to change)

Distinguished by its virtuosity, probing musical insight, and impassioned, fiery performances, the Ariel Quartet has garnered critical praise worldwide for more than twenty years. Formed when the members were just teenagers studying at the Jerusalem Academy Middle School of Music and Dance in Israel, the Ariel was named a recipient of the prestigious Cleveland Quartet Award, granted by Chamber Music America in recognition of artistic achievement and career support. Celebrating their 25th anniversary in 2023, the Quartet serves as the Faculty Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music (CCM), where they direct the chamber music program and present a concert series in addition to maintaining a busy touring schedule in the United States and abroad.

Recent highlights include the Ariel Quartet’s sold-out Carnegie Hall debut, a series of performances at Lincoln Center together with pianist Inon Barnatan and the Mark Morris Dance Group, as well as the release of a Brahms and Bartók album for Avie Records. In 2020, the Ariel gave the U.S. premiere of the Quintet for Piano and Strings by Daniil Trifonov, with the composer as pianist for the Linton Chamber Music Series in Cincinnati.

Ariel Quartet website

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Recognized as one of the world’s finest piano ensembles, the Trio con Brio Copenhagen’s multifaceted members are not only performing artists who tour extensively, but also esteemed recording artists, artistic directors and educators. The Trio appears regularly at the world’s leading venues and concert series, including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Wigmore Hall, Berlin’s Pierre Boulez-Saal, the Concertgebouw and many more. Trio con Brio is a recipient of the Carl Nielsen and Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen Award, one of Denmark’s most prestigious prizes.

Goldmund Quartet website

Program: (subject to change)

Recognized as one of the world’s finest piano ensembles, the Trio con Brio Copenhagen’s multifaceted members are not only performing artists who tour extensively, but also esteemed recording artists, artistic directors and educators. The Trio appears regularly at the world’s leading venues and concert series, including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Wigmore Hall, Berlin’s Pierre Boulez-Saal, the Concertgebouw and many more. Trio con Brio is a recipient of the Carl Nielsen and Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen Award, one of Denmark’s most prestigious prizes.

Trio con Brio Copenhagen website

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“Unmatched: multi-colored music for mixed instruments”

These words describe baroque music and the experience Tempesta di Mare delivers with every performance.

Baroque composers imbued their chamber and orchestral music with the powers of language, letting every listener experience as full a range of human emotion as from a play or poem. We craft our performances to bring baroque music’s most speech-like and emotive qualities front and center.

Whether as an orchestra or a chamber ensemble, our players transform the musical notes into dynamic, wordless dialogues in sound that win over audiences everywhere we play.

Tempesta di Mare website

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The only “Piano Windtet” worldwide: ensemble 4.1

Nominee for OPUS KLASSIK 2019

FOUR wind soloists, keen to chamber music, and ONE pianist Thomas Hoppe devote themselves to this still undiscovered wonderful musical genre.

ensemble 4.1 “the Easy-Riders of Viennese Classic”. Their exceptional communicative power and their intoxicating atmosphere on stage are often praised by critics and have become the hallmark of ensemble 4.1.

In addition to the original masterpieces for this setting by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven, the ensemble is devoted to discovering rarely played compositions from the turn of the 19th to the 20th century. After many years, piano windtets by Walter Gieseking, Theodor Verhey, Heinrich von Herzogenberg and Gustav Holst are again being performed for an enthusiastic public.

Ensemble 4.1 website

Program: (subject to change)

Trio Zimbalist has garnered critical acclaim for its “precision and feverish intensity” (Greece’s EfSyn). The group was lauded for its “liveliness and vigor of playing” and performances that were “pure enjoyment!” (Athinorama) at the Nights of Classical Music at the Gennadius Library festival in Athens, where it served as ensemble in residence in 2021. Members of the trio—violinist Josef Špaček, cellist Timotheos Gavriilidis-Petrin, and pianist George Xiaoyuan Fu—are all distinguished alumni of the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. In demand across Europe and the U.S. as soloists, chamber musicians, and recitalists, they form an inimitable ensemble with repertoire spanning Romantic masterworks to today’s most lauded composers.

Trio Zimbalist website