Internationally recognized for transformative musical experiences, DACAMERA Houston opens Lone Star College-CyFair’s Music Department spring season Feb. 8 with the United Kingdom’s Elias String Quartet and special guest pianist Sarah Rothenberg.
Continuing to raise the bar in the caliber of performers being brought to the Cy-Fair community, LSC-CyFair hosts this evening of star-studded musicians including the Elias String Quartet’s Sara Bitlloch, violin; Donald Grant, violin; Simone van der Giessen, viola; and Marie Bitlloch, cello.
Together this quartet will celebrate composer Fanny Mendelssohn with her rhapsodic Quartet in E-flat Major, one of the first surviving string quartets by a woman. The evening opens with Stravinsky’s rarely-performed miniatures, Three Pieces for String Quartet and includes Brahms’ majestic Piano Quintet with Rothenberg, DACAMERA’s artistic director, joining the quartet.
“As we welcome the UK quartet to our stage, we continue to make LSC-CyFair the community's destination for exciting, thought-provoking cultural experiences and entertainment,” said Dr. Brian Herrington, LSC-CyFair music faculty.
Last year’s performances at LSC-CyFair featured Loop38, a boundary-pushing, artist-driven new music ensemble based in Houston, “The Innocents”, an impactful percussion concert advocating social justice and two string ensembles, the Mud Turtle Quintet performing sounds of Argentinian tango music and the flamenco sounds of Spain, while the all-women Carya String Quartet’s concert included an evening of Anna Clyne and Beethoven.
LSC-CyFair is home to amazing talent in the performing and visual arts, Herrington continued. The faculty, who are nationally-renowned performers and artists, too, guide their students to create at a very high level as seen in gallery exhibitions, drama productions, recitals and large ensemble concerts throughout the year.
The upcoming “DACAMERA: A Cypress Sojourn” concert - featuring the Elias String Quartet, which London’s Sunday Telegraph described as “immensely talented with a rare quality of unforced spontaneity” - will inspire LSC-CyFair students, area high school students in the performing arts as well as the Cypress community.
This free concert will be held Thursday, Feb. 8, at 7:30 p.m. in LSC-CyFair’s Main Stage Theatre. For information on this concert and the upcoming performing arts season, go to LoneStar.edu/Boxoffice.