Praised for their “huge range of dynamics, massive sound and spontaneity” (American Record Guide), the Viano String Quartet is the First Prize Winner of the 2019 Banff International String Quartet Competition and the current Nina von Maltzahn String Quartet-in-Residence at the Curtis Institute of Music. Formed in 2015 at the Colburn Conservatory of Music in Los Angeles, the quartet has performed all over the world in venues such as Wigmore Hall, Place Flagey, Izumi Hall, Konzerthaus Berlin, and Segerstrom Center for the Arts.

The 2022-2023 season brings the Viano String Quartet on extensive tours throughout Europe, Canada, and the United States, with recital debuts in New York City, Hannover, Zurich, Budapest, Cologne, Heidelberg, Eisenstadt, San Diego, Denver, Calgary, Newport, and Philadelphia, among other cities. The quartet will also return to Southern Methodist University, where they are in residence through the 22/23 season.

Curtis on Tour
Viano String Quartet
and Roberto Diaz

SATURDAY FEBRUARY 18th @ 2 pm

(Performance Insights  @ 1 pm)

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Bethel United Methodist Church

Since the 2020 Covid pandemic, the Viano String Quartet has been actively presenting virtual and socially distanced live concerts for various organizations, including the Dallas Chamber Music Society, Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, Friends of Chamber Music of Troy, Corpus Christi Chamber Music Society, Salt Lake Chamber Music Society, Women’s Musical Club of Toronto, Schneider Series at the New School, Bravo! Vail Music Festival, Rockport Chamber Music Festival, and the Banff International String Quartet Festival. With their colleagues in the Calidore String Quartet, they presented a movement of the Mendelssohn Octet while distanced across countries in a film project “The Way Forward.”

The quartet achieved incredible success in their formative years, with an unbroken streak of top prizes. In addition to their career-defining achievement at the 2019 Banff International String Quartet Competition, they received the Grand Prize at the 2019 ENKOR International Music Competition and second prize at the 2019 Yellow Springs Chamber Music Competition. At the 2018 Wigmore Hall International String Quartet Competition they received Third Prize, the Haydn Prize for the best performance of a Haydn quartet, and the Sidney Griller Award for the best performance of the compulsory work, Thomas Ades’ “The Four Quarters”. They received the Silver Medal at the 2018 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, and Third Prize at the 2017 9th Osaka International Chamber Music Competition before any of the members turned 20.

Committed to engaging with communities outside the concert hall, the Viano String Quartet has given presentations for school children and students of all ages through residencies in Bellingham, Washington—the “Play it Forward” residency, a collaboration between the Bellingham Festival of Music and the Whatcom Symphony to reach school children in the northern Washington State area—Northern Michigan University, and the Santa Monica Conservatory. In 2019 they gave multiple performances of “Over the Top”, a Musical Encounter Interactive presentation they scripted, developed and performed at the Colburn School for inner city school children.

At the Curtis Institute, the Viano String Quartet is chiefly mentored by the Dover Quartet and other members of the Curtis faculty, including Shmuel Ashkenasi, Pamela Frank, Ida Kavafian, Arnold Steinhardt, Steven Tenenbom, and Peter Wiley. As the inaugural ensemble-in-residence at the Colburn Conservatory of Music from 2019-2021, they were mentored extensively by Martin Beaver, Scott St. John, Clive Greensmith, Paul Coletti and Fabio Bidini. The Vianos have also received coachings from artists such as David Finckel, Gary Hoffman, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, and members of the Alban Berg, Brentano, Emerson, Miró, Shanghai, St. Lawrence, and Takács String Quartets. They have attended the Ravinia Steans Chamber Music Institute, St. Lawrence String Quartet Seminar, Festival d’Aix en Provence, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, Great lakes Chamber Music Festival, and the McGill International String Quartet Academy.

Over the years, the quartet has collaborated in performance with artists such as Emanuel Ax, Noah Bendix-Balgley, Marc-Andre Hamelin, Rodolfo Leone, Eliso Virsaladze, and Orion Weiss, and look forward to collaborations with Inon Barnatan, Michelle Cann, and Roberto Diaz in the upcoming season.

The name “Viano” was created to describe the four individual instruments in a string quartet interacting as one. Each of the four instruments begins with the letter “v”, and like a piano, all four string instruments together play both harmony and melody, creating a unified instrument called the “Viano”.

Learn more at VianoStringQuartet.com.

Roberto Díaz

A violist of international reputation, Roberto Díaz is president and CEO of the Curtis Institute of Music, following in the footsteps of renowned soloist/directors such as Josef Hofmann, Efrem Zimbalist, and Rudolf Serkin. As a teacher of viola at Curtis and former principal viola of the Philadelphia Orchestra, Mr. Díaz has already had a significant impact on American musical life and continues to do so in his dual roles as performer and educator.

As a soloist, Mr. Díaz collaborates with leading conductors of our time on stages throughout North and South America, Europe, and Asia.  He has also worked directly with important 20th- and 21st-century composers, including Krzysztof Penderecki—whose viola concerto he has performed many times with the composer on the podium and whose double concerto he premiered in the United States—as well as Edison Denisov, Jennifer Higdon, Ricardo Lorenz, and Roberto Sierra. His recording of Jennifer Higdon’s Viola Concerto won the Grammy for Best Contemporary Classical Composition in 2018.

As a frequent recitalist, Mr. Díaz enjoys collaborating with young pianists, bringing a fresh approach to the repertoire and providing invaluable opportunities to artists at the beginnings of their careers. In addition to performing with major string quartets and pianists in chamber music series and festivals worldwide, Mr. Díaz has toured Europe, Asia, and the Americas as a member of the Díaz Trio with violinist Andrés Cárdenes and cellist Andrés Díaz. The Díaz Trio has recorded for the Artek and Dorian labels.

Mr. Díaz’s recordings on the Naxos label with pianist Robert Koenig include the complete works for viola and piano by Henri Vieuxtemps and a Grammy-nominated disc of viola transcriptions by William Primrose. Also on Naxos are Brahms sonatas with pianist Jeremy Denk and Jonathan Leshnoff’s Double Concerto with violinist Charles Wetherbee and the Iris Chamber Orchestra led by Michael Stern. Mr. Díaz’s live performance of Jacob Druckman’s Viola Concerto with Wolfgang Sawallisch and the Philadelphia Orchestra is available on New World Records. He has also recorded the Walton Viola Concerto with William Boughton and the New Haven Symphony for Nimbus Records, and works for viola and orchestra by Peter Lieberson with Scott Yoo and the Odense Symphony Orchestra and for Bridge Records.

Since founding Curtis on Tour in 2007, Mr. Díaz has taken this successful initiative to North and South America, Europe, and Asia, performing chamber music side-by-side with Curtis students and other faculty and alumni of the school. His tenure as president of Curtis has also seen the construction of a significant new building which doubled the size of the school’s campus; the introduction of a classical guitar department and new conducting and string quartet programs; and the launch of Curtis Summerfest, summer courses open to the public. In the fall of 2013 Curtis became the first classical music conservatory to offer free online classes through Coursera.

Also under Mr. Díaz’s leadership, Curtis has developed lasting collaborations with other music and arts institutions in Philadelphia and throughout the world and established a dynamic social entrepreneurship curriculum, supported by a prestigious Advancement Grant from The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage. Designed to develop the entrepreneurial and advocacy skills of young musicians, this curriculum includes the project-based Community Artist Program (CAP) and the post-graduate Community Artist Fellowship program, which gives recent Curtis graduates the opportunity to dedicate a year of arts-based service to the community.

Mr. Díaz received an honorary doctorate from Bowdoin College and was awarded an honorary membership by the National Board of the American Viola Society. In 2013 he became a member of the prestigious American Philosophical Society founded by Benjamin Franklin. As a member of the Philadelphia Orchestra, he was selected by then-music director Christoph Eschenbach to receive the C. Hartman Kuhn Award, given annually to “the member of the Philadelphia Orchestra who has shown ability and enterprise of such character as to enhance the standards and the reputation of the Philadelphia Orchestra.” He received a bachelor’s degree from the New England Conservatory of Music, where he studied with Burton Fine; and a diploma from the Curtis Institute of Music, where his teacher was his predecessor at the Philadelphia Orchestra, Joseph de Pasquale. Mr. Díaz also holds a degree in industrial design.

In addition to his decade-long tenure as principal viola of the Philadelphia Orchestra, where he performed the entire standard viola concerto repertoire and gave a number of Philadelphia Orchestra premieres, Mr.  Díaz was principal viola of the National Symphony under Mstislav Rostropovich, a member of the Boston Symphony under Seiji Ozawa, and a member of the Minnesota Orchestra under Sir Neville Marriner. He plays the ex-Primrose Amati viola.

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