The Strings area at The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music presents the Formosa Quartet as part of the Mari and Ed Edelman String Quartet Residency. In the second year of the residency, Che-Yen Chen, professor of viola at UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music and founding member of the Formosa Quartet, welcomes back his quartet colleagues to present instrumental masterclasses, chamber music coachings, open rehearsals, and the concerts during the week-long residency.
The residency concludes with a concert featuring Brahms String Sextet No. 1 Op. 18 and Beethoven String Quartet No. 15, Op. 132. Professor of Cello Antonio Lysy and first-year MM violinist student Sam Lorenzini will join the quartet for this musical gathering. A pre-concert talk will be given by Professor William Kinderman, who holds the inaugural Leon M. Klein and Elaine Krown Klein Chair of Performance Studies.
The members of the Formosa Quartet –Jasmine Lin, Wayne Lee, Che-Yen Chen, and Deborah Pae – have established themselves as leading soloists, chamber musicians, and pedagogues. With degrees from the Juilliard School, Curtis Institute of Music, and New England Conservatory, they have performed in major venues throughout the United States, Asia, and Europe. They have been top prizewinners in prestigious competitions such as the Paganini, Primrose, Fischoff, Naumburg, and Tertis competitions. As chamber musicians, they have appeared regularly at the Marlboro, Kingston, Santa Fe, Ottawa, Ravinia, Crans-Montana, and Schiermonnikoog festivals, as well as at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, La Jolla Summerfest, the Seattle Chamber Music Society, and Open Chamber Music at Prussia Cove. Three members of the Formosa Quartet are currently faculty at the Eastern Michigan University, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Roosevelt University, and have previously held positions at the Taos School of Music and the Juilliard School.
This series is made possible thanks to Mari Edelman and The Ed Edelman Endowment for Chamber Music which supports opportunities for our students to learn and perform chamber music, benefitting them and delighting our audiences. Additionally, we are proud to celebrate this program as part of the 2019-2020 Dobrow Series.