Laredo students and music lovers have a special opportunity to learn from award-winning professional musicians and enjoy an exciting music concert during master classes and a scholarship fund-raiser concert with the Völs Strings Quartet this week.
The Völs Quartet—comprised
of national and international competition prizewinners from Ukraine, Puerto Rico
and the United States—will be at Laredo Community College to offer master
classes on Friday, May 6, followed by a guest artist recital on Saturday, May 7.
The master classes will run from 9 to 11:30 a.m. at the Guadalupe and Lilia Martinez Fine Arts Center, room 102. Admission is free and open to college and high school students, as well as the public.
Saturday’s recital starts at 7:30 p.m. in the Martinez Fine Arts Center theater. Admission for the benefit is $5 for adults and $2 for students. Proceeds go toward scholarships for music students.
Established in 2004, the Völs Quartet has celebrated success in concerts and master classes across northern Italy, the U.S. and the Caribbean.
The group’s connection to Laredo was established last fall, when one of its members, Dr. Joel Pagan of Puerto Rico, became a music instructor at LCC.
“I am pleased to offer the opportunity for the Völs Quartet to support music education and provide a culturally-enriching experience for the benefit of students and the community,” Pagan, violist, said.
Other members of the quartet include Hungarian-American violinist Daniel Andai, Ukrainian violinist Iryna Krechkovsky and Minnesota native Lucas Shogren, who plays the cello.
The Völs Quartet is named after the city of Völs am Schlern in Italy, where the group was born after performing in several concerts in the Schlern International Music Festival.
The group has performed extensively in Florida. The musicians also performed by invitation at the University of Puerto Rico in Mayaguez for its Travesia concert series. They also have been featured in Minneapolis, the University of Minnesota and the North Dakota State University, where the ensemble received a thunderous standing ovation and requests for several encores from the audience.
The Völs Quartet also plans to perform at the 2005 Banff Centre in Canada and the Chamber Music Festival in Lincoln, Neb.
The ensemble will perform music from Ludwig Van Beethoven, Dmitri Schostakowitsch and Franz Schubert at the LCC concert.
For more information about the master classes or recital, call the LCC Music and Dance Department at 721-5330.
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