Amernet String Quartet - Steven Gerber's Spirituals for String Quartet

Описание: The Amernet String Quartet was in concert on Tuesday, September 9, 2025 at Marc A. Scorca Hall at The National Opera Center in Manhattan, performing selections from Steven Gerber's Spirituals for String Quartet.

The program was repeated on September 10 at Queens Botanical Garden in Flushing, and on Thursday, September 11 at Port Washington Public Library in Port Washington on Long Island.

These concerts were presented in cooperation with The Steven Gerber Trust.

Steven R. Gerber was born on September 28, 1948 in Washington, D.C. He held degrees from Haverford College and from Princeton University, where he received a 4-year fellowship. Steven's music composition teachers include Robert Parris, J. K. Randall, Earl Kim, and Milton Babbitt.

His early works were in a free atonal style, incorporating serial and non-twelve-tone languages into a distinctive and deeply personal sound world. During his years as a graduate student at Princeton and throughout the 1970's, he wrote a number of stunning compositions, such as the a cappella choral works Dylan Thomas Settings and Illuminations (Rimbaud). Beginning in the early 1980s, he abandoned twelve-tone and atonal composition, with rare exceptions, and his music became much more tonal while still retaining the expressive elements of the his earlier works.

Other major works of Gerber's included a Viola Concerto written for Yuri Bashmet and premiered by him at his Summer festival in Tours, France, String Quartets No. 4, 5 and 6, written respectively for the Fine Arts and Amernet String Quartets, Spirituals for clarinet and string quartet, commissioned by Concertante Chamber Players for performances in 2000 at Library of Congress, Merkin Hall (NYC) and in Harrisburg, PA.

Steven's chamber music release on Naxos Steven R. Gerber � Chamber Music features nine of his finest works in the genre, recorded by violinists Kurt Nikkanen and Cho-Liang Lin and cellists Cyrus Beroukhim and Brinton Smith, with pianist Sara Davis Buechner. Recent chamber music releases include the Albany Records CD (Mostly) Piano Music of works performed by Gerber on piano, with Gregory Fulkerson, violin and Jennifer Rinehart, piano. A new Albany Records CD release of The Amernet String Quartet performing Gerber's String Quartet's 4, 5 and 6 and Fantasy, Fugue & Chaconne for Viola & Cello was released in May 2015.

Gerber's catalog of works also includes many song cycles, choral works and pieces for solo instruments. His compositions are published by Mobart Music Publications / Boelke-Bomart, Inc. and Lauren Keiser Music. Information about Gerber, including a complete list of works and discography is available at www.stevengerber.com.

Steven R. Gerber was living in his long-time home of New York City at the time of his death from cancer on May 28, 2015. His beloved partner, Dr. Norma Hymes, died in July of 2010.

Praised for their "intelligence" and “immensely satisfying” playing by the New York Times, the Amernet String Quartet has garnered recognition as one of today's exceptional string quartets and are Ensemble-in-Residence at Florida International University in Miami. Their sound has been called “complex” but with an “old world flavor.” Strad Magazine described the Amernet as “...a group of exceptional ability.”

The Amernet's performance schedule has taken the quartet across the Americas and to Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. They have collaborated with many of today's most prominent artists and ensembles including the Tokyo and Ying quartets as well as Shmuel Ashkenasi, Roberto Diaz, Gary Hoffman, Ida Kavafian, Anthony McGill, Joseph Kalichstein, Sherrill Milnes, and Michael Tree.

Members are violinists Misha Vitenson and Avi Nagin, violist Michael Klotz and cellist Jason Calloway. Much more about them at https://www.amernetquartet.com/about.