There will be more than the music of Beethoven to celebrate when the Vega String Quartet performs at the Schwartz Center for Performing Arts on Saturday night.
The Emory Chamber Music Society of Atlanta (ECMSA) will announce at the concert that it has received a $375,000 grant from the Abraham J. and Phyllis Katz Foundation that will help keep Atlanta's only full-time professional string quartet in the city and in residence at Emory University for five additional years.
ECMSA artistic director William Ransom, the Emory pianist who established the Vega String Quartet's residency in 2006, called it "a wonderful gift to the entire community."
Vega began at Emory as visiting artists in residence in the 2003-04 season, when the quartet, then based in New York, played the complete cycle of Beethoven string quartets in six concerts.
As part of the full-time residency, the musicians move beyond the concert hall into a range of classes across the campus for performances and discussions of music's relationship to each academic subject. The quartet members also offer coaching to chamber players in Emory's music department and run a chamber music program for top pre-college musicians.
Also at Saturday's concert, the ECMSA will introduce Domenic Salerni as the Vega's first violinist. Salerni, who has toured with the chamber ensemble Sejong since 2008 and recorded for the Canary and Naxos labels, is completing his master's of music studies at Yale University, where he has served as Yale Philharmonia's concertmaster.
Now in its 18th season, the ECMSA is Atlanta's largest chamber music organization. It continues to raise funds to supplement the Katz Foundation grant as well as toward an endowment that would support a permanent string quartet residency at Emory.
Concert preview
Vega String Quartet: "The Best of Beethoven"
With William Ransom, piano. 8 p.m. Saturday at Schwartz Center for Performing Arts' Emerson Concert Hall, 1700 N. Decatur Road, Atlanta. Tickets, $20. 404-727-5050, www.arts.emory.edu.
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