The 92nd Street Y, New York (92NY), one of New York’s leading cultural venues, presents Catalyst Quartet on Friday, November 22, 2024 at 7:30pm in Buttenwieser Hall at The Arnhold Center and streaming online. Tickets start at $25 and are available at https://www.92ny.org/event/catalyst-quartet. The program will be available to stream for 72 hours following the live performance.

The brilliant young Grammy Award-winning Catalyst Quartet returns with an exploration of music at the crossroads of Ravel, Gershwin, Latin jazz, and tango. The program culminates in Ravel’s ravishing String Quartet, revealing impulses that became influences for the evening’s other three composers. The Latin-inspired works are rounded out with the addition of Gershwin’s dreamy Lullaby – a piece premiered by the Juilliard String Quartet and rarely performed in its original version. A gorgeous program from an ensemble dedicated to expanding what a string quartet can be in the 21st century.

PROGRAM

PAQUITO D’RIVERA But, Just a Minute?!/ A Farewell Mambo/ Wapango

PIAZZOLLA Suite del Ángel (arr. Catalyst Quartet)

GERSHWIN Lullaby

RAVEL String Quartet in F Major

Hailed by The New York Times at its Carnegie Hall debut as “invariably energetic and finely burnished… playing with earthy vigor,” the Grammy Award-winning Catalyst Quartet was founded by the internationally acclaimed Sphinx Organization in 2010. The ensemble (Karla Donehew Perez, violin; Abi Fayette, violin; Paul Laraia, viola; and Karlos Rodriguez, cello) believes in the unity that can be achieved through music and imagine their programs and projects with this in mind, redefining and reimagining the classical music experience.

Catalyst Quartet, known for “perfect ensemble unity” and “unequaled class of execution” (Lincoln Journal Star), has toured widely throughout the United States and abroad, including sold-out performances at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., at Chicago’s Harris Theater, Miami’s New World Center, and Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage at Carnegie Hall in New York. The quartet has been guest soloists with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, New Haven Symphony Orchestra, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, and the Orquesta Filarmónica de Bogotá, and has served as principal players and featured ensemble with the Sphinx Organization’s Sphinx Virtuosi on six national tours. It has been invited to perform at important music festivals such as Mainly Mozart in San Diego, the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, Sitka Music Festival, Juneau Jazz and Classics, Strings Music Festival, and the Grand Canyon Music Festival. The Catalyst Quartet was ensemble-in-residence at the Vail Dance Festival in 2016. During the 2021/22 season it was in residence with San Francisco Performances, where it presented the complete series of works from the Uncovered Project. In 2014, the quartet opened the Festival del Sole in Napa, California with Joshua Bell and participated in England’s Aldeburgh Music Foundation String Quartet Residency with two performances in Jubilee Hall. In 2022 the Catalyst Quartet was named ensemble in residence for the Chamber Music Northwest Festival in Portland and for The Metropolitan Museum’s LiveArts series.

Catalyst Quartet’s largest ongoing project, UNCOVERED, is a multi-volume set of albums on Azica records that celebrates composers of color whose works have been overlooked by the traditional canon. Volume 1, released in February 2021, includes the string quartet and quintets of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor with clarinetist Anthony McGill and pianist Stewart Goodyear. Volume 2 features works by Florence B. Price and Volume 3, released in February 2023, featuring Coleridge-Taylor, Perkinson, William Grant Still, and George Walker, was nominated for a GRAMMY in the best small chamber ensemble category. Learn more at www.catalystquartet.com.



About The 92nd Street Y, New York: The 92nd Street Y, New York (92NY) is a world-class center for the arts and innovation, a convener of ideas, and an incubator for creativity. 92NY offers extensive classes, courses and events online including live concerts, talks and master classes; fitness classes for all ages; 250+ art classes, and parenting workshops for new moms and dads. The 92nd Street Y is transforming the way people share ideas and translate them into action all over the world. All of 92NY’s programming is built on a foundation of Jewish values, including the capacity of civil dialogue to change minds; the potential of education and the arts to change lives; and a commitment to welcoming and serving people of all ages, races, religions, and ethnicities. For more information, visit www.92NY.org.

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