Cuarteto Latinoamericano to Give Free Concert at Ithaca College

By Dave Maley, February 4, 2020
Performance is part of Boehmler Community Foundation series.

The Ithaca College School of Music will welcome one of the world’s leading string quartets to campus as Cuarteto Latinoamericano performs at 8:15 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 7. Free and open to the public, the concert will be held in Hockett Family Recital Hall in the James J. Whalen Center for Music.

The concert is sponsored by the Robert G. Boehmler Community Foundation, and the program will feature Franz Schubert’s “Death and the Maiden,” Quartet No. 5 by Heitor Villa-Lobos, “Four for Tango” by Astor Piazolla, and Gabriela Ortiz’s “La Calaca.”

For over 35 years, Cuarteto Latinoamericano has been the leading proponent of Latin American music for the genre. Founded in Mexico in 1982, the group’s members are three Bitrán brothers — violinists Saul and Arón and cellist Álvaro — and violist Javier Montiel.

The quartet has performed in some of the world’s most distinguished halls and music festivals, and collaborated with celebrated artists and orchestras ranging from the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Esa-Pekka Salonen to the Simón Bolívar Orchestra of Venezuela under Eduardo Mata.

The group’s recorded output includes nearly the entire Latin American repertoire for string quartet. Their albums “Brasileiro” (2012) and “El Hilo Invisible” (2016) won Latin Grammys for Best Classical Recording, and “Inca Dances,” recorded with Manuel Barrueco, won the 2009 Latin Grammy for Best New Latin Composition.

The concert series is made possible by a grant from the Robert G. Boehmler Community Foundation. Boehmler, who received bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Ithaca College School of Music, was a musician and educator who established the foundation to support education in the communities in which he lived. A music teacher in the Palmyra-Macedon (NY) School District for many years, he passed away in 1998.