Four-Cello Quartet to Play Concert Tuesday

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Created on Monday, 10 February 2025 15:50

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By SHANNON HAUGLAND
Sentinel Staff Writer
    The award-winning Galvin Cello Quartet will play music by Beethoven, Saint-Sans and others at a special Sitka Music Festival concert Tuesday at the Miner Music Center at Stevenson Hall.
    At press time today, there were just two tickets left for the dinner concert, “Winterlude in Sitka with The Galvin Cello Quartet,” but the quartet has also played for music classes at Sitka and Mt. Edgecumbe high schools.

Members of the award-winning Galvin Cello Quartet, from left, Haddon Kay, Sydney Lee, James Baik and Luiz Fernando Venturelli, perform for Sitka High School music students this morning in the high school band room. The musicians are in town to perform at the Sitka Music Festival’s second annual “Winterlude” 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at Stevenson Hall. Only two tickets remain for the show. (Sentinel Photo by James Poulson)

    “They’re incredible,” said Alex Serio, executive director of the Sitka Music Festival. “The intonation, the blend – they play everything from memory, even the inner parts. They interact, they smile at each other – it’s fun to watch.”
    The quartet takes its name from a recital hall at Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music in Evanston, Illinois. Three players, Sydney Lee, Haddon Kay and Luiz Venturelli, met as students in the music school, and the fourth, James Baik, joined last June. All four studied under acclaimed pedagogue, Hans Jørgen Jensen.
    On their tour in Alaska, the quartet played in Ketchikan before traveling to Sitka Saturday. Other stops are Wasilla, Fairbanks and Anchorage.
    “We wanted it to be a winter celebration, so we came up with the term Winterlude,” Serio said of the Sitka concert. “It’s a chance to use this beautiful new facility, and have food and wine, prosecco, and enjoy a winter warmer if you will.” Hames Corporation is donating food for the event.
    Other pieces on the program are by Paganini, Rossini, Kazimierz Wilkomirski, Tchaikovski and David Popper. Two of the pieces are original arrangements by the quartet.
    The cellists have won individual awards, and as a quartet played at a Concert Artist Guild event in New York City, where they drew the notice of Sitka Music Festival artistic director Zuill Bailey.
    “Zuill was invited to New York to coach them on community engagement and working in the schools with students,” Serio said. “He heard them play and was just blown away, so decided to invite them to do the series here.”
    Among her credits, Lee has won first prize in the 2022 Washington International Competition, took Second Prize at the Classic Strings International Competition in Dubai, and captured first prize in the 10th Antonio Janigro International Cello competition.
    Kay was a finalist in the Chicago Symphony Young Artist Competition, captured third prize at the George Enescu International Competition, and won First Prize at the Luminarts and American Opera Society competitions.
    Venturelli made his solo debut at age nine, and has been featured with the São Paulo (Brazil) State Symphony, the Goiás Philharmonic, and the Bahia Symphony. He is a recent prizewinner in the Sphinx Competition, the Samuel and Elinor Thaviu String Competition, and the New York International Artists Association.
    Baik was a first prize winner in the 2023 Susan Wadsworth Young Concert Artists International Auditions, and recipient of the Paul A. Fish Memorial Prize and the Bridgehampton Chamber Music Prize. He is a YCA Jacobs Fellow and has played chamber music at the Ravinia and Bridgehampton festivals. He currently studies at the Colburn School under Clive Greensmith.
    Baik said the highlight of the Alaska program is really “the whole program.”
    “We’ve really put a lot of thought into this program as far as variety, really showcasing what the cello is capable of doing, showing all aspects of it, whether it’s lyricism, virtuosity, depth, just sheer richness of sound,” he said.
    Asked about his favorite among the pieces the quartet is playing on the Alaska tour, Blak said, “I guess my personal favorite would be either the Beethoven or the Tchaikovsky. I think those are two works that are extremely profound and deep, and I feel like the cello quartet is an amazing medium for that to come through. I feel like it can impact audiences really deeply.”
    Another member of the group said a cello quartet is somewhat unusual, and that people are intrigued when four musicians are all playing the same kind of instrument, but that’s not what they take away from a concert.
    “It’s a good hook in the beginning,” Venturelli said. “But at the end of concerts, we tend to get more comments on the programming and the approach that we have to music making into interaction with the audiences and with ourselves, rather than the cello, which is always really fun thing to do.”
    They said they try to concert program in a way that provides depth but they also hope it is also an accessible and enjoyable experience.
    “We speak to audiences a lot during the performance, we don’t use sheet music because we want to have as little separating us from the audience as much as possible,” Venturelli said. “So it’s usually more comments about the four of us playing cello at the beginning of the concert, and more about how the program was presented at the end of the concert.”
    Something that has struck them about Sitka, although at least one had not yet stepped outdoors since arriving? “You have great pizza,” Venturelli said.