The all-Canadian Afiara String Quartet is widely noted for its engaging, authentic presence and performances balancing “intensity and commitment” with “frequent moments of tenderness.” [The Montreal Gazette].

Winner of the 2008 Concert Artists Guild International Competition, the 2010 Young Canadian Musicians Award, top prizes at the Munich ARD International Music Competition and the Banff International String Quartet Competition, where they also took the Szekely Prize for best Beethoven interpretation, the Afiara String Quartet has lively interest in new works and fresh insight into core classical repertoire.

This summer the Afiara returns to residencies at The Banff Centre and the Indiana University Summer Music Festival, appears in concerts at the Festival of the Sound in Ontario, at the Ottawa Chamber Music Festival, at Domaine Forget, and at the Waterside Summer Series, and makes its Ravinia debut playing works by Haydn, Beethoven and Dvorak.

In the 2011/12 season the Afiara will perform concerts at the Baryshnikov Arts Centre in New York City, at Stamford Chamber Music Group in Connecticut, ProMusica San Miguel de Allende in Mexico, Music at Kohl Mansion in California, Chamber Music Cincinnati, Art Center Chamber Music Concerts in New Jersey, and elsewhere in North America. They will offer masterclasses, educational outreach and performances in residency at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, and for their annual return to Toronto’s Royal Conservatory of Music as Visiting-Quartet-in-Residence. They will also perform a program with Jörg Widmann for Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.

Last season they appeared in New York City at Alice Tully Hall, Merkin Concert Hall and for the Americas Society; at the Kennedy Center both for the Mendelssohn Octet with the Juilliard String Quartet, and also presented in concert by the Washington Performing Arts Society. They opened the Montreal Chamber Music Festival’s six-concert Beethoven String Cycle, sharing duties with the Tokyo and Chiara String Quartets. The Afiara also performed at Las Cruces Concerts in New Mexico; Vancouver’s Music in the Morning; in São Paulo, Brazil; at the Muziekgebouw in Amsterdam; throughout Denmark and elsewhere.

Other recent highlights include performances at San Francisco Performances, the Library of Congress, the Chautauqua Institution, Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, Indiana University’s Summer Music Festival, Princeton University’s Summer Chamber Music Series, the San Jose Chamber Music Society, and the Calgary ProMusica Series, et al.
 
Passionate advocates of new music, the Afiara String Quartet has embarked on a project with the Common Sense Composers’ Collective and Cecilia String Quartet, performing and recording eight new quartet works at The Banff Centre.  Enjoying a friendly mentorship with the Kronos Quartet, the Afiara offered affectionate tribute at the Kronos’ June 2011 Avery Fisher Prize Presentation, playing Aleksandra Vrebalov’s “Pannonia Boundless”. The Afiara have also performed the world premieres of Brett Abigana’s String Quartet No. 2, “Lockdown” by Dan Becker, and Jason Bush’s “Visions in San Francisco” – all written specifically for them. Among other new music highlights, the Afiara have collaborated with timpanist Louis Siu in a set of commissions, and with singer/songwriter Kyrie Kristmanson and composer Patrick Carrabre for a world premiere song-cycle at the Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival.

The Afiara String Quartet has been heard on Bavarian Radio, CBC Radio 2, TROS in the Netherlands, San Francisco’s KALW, New York’s WQXR and are featured in the Road to Banff documentary. Their debut CD, on the Foghorn Classics label, features quartets by Mendelssohn and Schubert, as well as the Mendelssohn Octet with the Alexander String Quartet.
 
In 2011, the Afiara String Quartet completed a two-year tenure as graduate resident string quartet at The Juilliard School in New York, where they served as teaching assistants to the Juilliard String Quartet. Prior to that, they were the Morrison Fellowship Quartet-in-Residence at San Francisco State University’s International Center for the Arts (2007-2009), where the members were teaching assistants to their mentor ensemble, the Alexander String Quartet.  The Afiara players have also worked with musicians and ensembles including the American, Cavani, Emerson, Kronos, St. Lawrence, Takacs and Ying Quartets, Earl Carlyss, James Dunham, Henk Guittart, Bonnie Hampton, and at the San Francisco Conservatory, where they were formed, with Paul Hersh, Mark Sokol and Ian Swensen. They also provide educational outreach and make regular appearances at The Banff Centre, which generously provides the 1737 Guidantus violin played by second violinist Yuri Cho.
 
Recognizing the vital importance of music education and advocacy, the Afiara String Quartet pursues its own teaching work, in residence at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, at Toronto’s Royal Conservatory of Music and as faculty at Chamber Music of the Rockies, Indiana University Summer String Academy, and Canada’s Southern Ontario Chamber Music Institute, among other institutions.

Formed in 2006, the Afiara String Quartet takes its name from the Spanish fiar, meaning “to trust”, a basic element vital to the depth and joy of its music-making.

(September 2011. Please discard previously dated materials and contact publicity@colbertartists.com before making any alterations or cuts.)