Born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Jaime Amador Medina began his studies in the String Program for Children at the Puerto Rico Conservatory of Music as a student of Francisco Figueroa and Guillermo Figueroa. He was accepted to The Juilliard School, where he worked under Toby Appel. Mr. Amador later continued his studies at the Manhattan School of Music, during which time he participated in the International Videoconference with renowned violist Pinchas Zukerman. He has participated in several other master classes with Roberto Díaz, Michael Tree, Helen Callus, Paul Neubauer, Pamela Frank, Sylvia Rosenberg, and Hartmut Rohde, to name a few.

As a chamber musician, Mr. Amador has collaborated with such notable musicians as Emanuel Borok, Mikhael Kopelman, David Geber, Michael Lewin, Emilio Colon, Vanessa Perez, Mykola Suk and Eric Himy, among others. He was principal viola of the New England Ensemble, Camerata New York, and the New Bach Players, having played in prestigious venues in New York, such as Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, Alice Tully Hall, as well as several concert halls across Europe.

Mr. Amador has participated in important international music festivals including the Meadowmount School of Music (where he was teaching assistant to Eugene Becker), Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena, Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía in Santander, the Academy of Music in New Jersey, the Norfolk Music Festival in Connecticut, and, most recently, the Carl Flesch Akademie in Baden-Baden, Germany.

Mr. Amador is a former member of the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra, where he was the winner of its Soloist Competition, awarded in 2007. On this occasion, the newspaper El Nuevo Día reviewed his interpretation of Béla Bártok’s concerto for viola and orchestra as “outstanding, having displayed sound technical mastery and a sobriety most appropriate to the nature of the piece. From the moment the viola alone is introduced, this young musician exuded confidence and aplomb, which was mirrored in the precision of his execution throughout the entire performance.”

Matthew Zalkind, cellist

Praised for his “impressive refinement, eloquent phrasing, and singing tone” by The New York Times, American cellist Matthew Zalkind has performed throughout the United States and abroad as a recitalist, soloist, and chamber musician.

Mr. Zalkind was awarded First Prize in the 2012 Washington International Competition, as well as prizes in the Beijing International Cello Competition, Korea’s Isang Yun Gyeongnam International Competition, and the Juilliard School Competition. He also won distinction as the top-ranked American in the 2011 Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow.

As a soloist, Mr. Zalkind has performed concerti with such organizations as the Moscow Chamber Players, the Albany Symphony, the Hongzhou Philharmonic, the Utah Symphony, the Tongyeong International Music Festival Orchestra, and the Music Academy of the West Festival Orchestra in Santa Barbara. As soloist with the Juilliard Symphony Orchestra he performed in New York’s Avery Fisher Hall under the baton of Ludovic Morlot. Upcoming concerto appearances include the Shostakovich Concerto at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and the Haydn C Major Concerto in Salt Lake City, Utah.

An active chamber musician, Mr. Zalkind has participated in numerous music festivals, including Marlboro and Ravinia. He has collaborated in chamber music with Mitsuko Uchida, Richard Goode, Menahem Pressler, Charles Neidich, Bruno Canino, Scott St. John, Jonathan Biss, and members of the Guarneri String Quartet. In addition, Mr. Zalkind has performed at the Kennedy Center and in New York’s Alice Tully Hall and Metropolitan Museum of Art. He is a founding member, along with Emily Daggett Smith and pianist Michael Brown, of the West End Trio, which had its debut at Alice Tully Hall in April 2010.

Mr. Zalkind has a strong interest in teaching and outreach, and is currently a graduate student instructor at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. In addition, he was assistant faculty for two summers at the Meadowmount School of Music. Mr. Zalkind was awarded a Gluck Community Service Fellowship at The Juilliard School for four years, performing concerts at treatment facilities throughout the five boroughs of New York City.

A Salt Lake City native, Mr. Zalkind began his studies with Richard Hoyt. He has worked extensively with Pegsoon Whang, Hans Jensen, Ronald Leonard, and Alan Stepansky. Mr. Zalkind was accepted to The Juilliard School with presidential distinction in 2004 as a student of Timothy Eddy. He received his Bachelors Degree from Juilliard in 2008, and his Masters Degree 2010 as the recipient of Juilliard’s Irene Diamond Graduate Fellowship and the Rena Robbins Shapiro Memorial Scholarship in Cello. Mr. Zalkind is expecting his Doctorate of Musical Arts from the University of Michigan in 2013 as a student of Richard Aaron.

Their next performance takes place on New Year's Eve under the auspices of the Santa Fe Concert Association.

Published on July 2, 2012

By Ed Enright

“Friday night [at the Montreal Jazz Festival, acoustic/electric bassist Stanley] Clarke teamed up with the Harlem Quartet, a cutting-edge modern classical group that not only proved itself capable of nailing Clarke’s complex charts but also demonstrated great capacity for content-rich improvisation. This wasn’t the kind of string section that pads and sweetens; [The Harlem Quartet] collaborated with Clarke as an artistic entity that displayed top-notch chops, sensitive ears and surprising guts.”

Gone now are the resources - and political will - for a US government-funded Louis Armstrong big band tour through a half-dozen Eastern European nations, conductor Leonard Bernstein and the whole New York Philharmonic in concert in Leningrad, or a month-long odyssey by a 45-strong Martha Graham Dance Company tour through Southeast Asia.

Or, alternatively, tours by the Bolshoi Ballet in Japan's major cities, accompanied by battalions of Japanese police keeping demonstrators - who were protesting the Russian occupation of those pinprick Northern Territories islands captured in the last days of World War II - away from the theatres.

Those were the days my friend, we thought they'd never ever end... except that they eventually did.

Cultural exchanges now take on a more modest character, consistent with the straitened financial circumstances of sponsoring governments. More modest, yes, but not necessarily lesser quality.

Visiting South Africa at the moment is a new chamber group from America, the Harlem Quartet. The Sphinx Organization, a non-profit group dedicated to improving the ethnic diversity in America's classical music world, established the group in 2006. Bringing together four young, immaculately trained African American and Hispanic musicians, they play the standard classical chamber repertoire, as well as pieces like Joaquin Turina's La Oracion del Toreo, compositions by contemporary jazz legends like Chick Corea and Wynton Marsalis, and classic pieces by Billy Strayhorn and Duke Ellington, now arranged for string quartet.

When I caught up with the musicians, they were in the midst of an informal recital, master class and workshop with students at Johannesburg's National School for the Arts, the first stop of the group's three-city tour in South Africa. The group is so informally attired they look more like roadies for a rock group than the beautifully talented classical chamber ensemble they are, and maybe that's part of their charm.

The musicians say they are committed to engaging with young and new audiences. That is, people who have never dared to venture into one of those imposing temples to culture usually reserved used for classical music.

In the quartet's short life, they have played with musicians as varied as Itzhak Perlman, Misha Dichter, Eliot Fisk and the aforementioned Chick Corea and - this was a bit of a shocker - their first public concert was in New York City's fabled Carnegie Hall. Oh, and in 2009 they had a gig in Barack Obama's White House too.

As the NSA students rush off to catch transport home across Johannesburg, the musicians take a moment to speak about their background, expectations and experiences.

How did they become musicians in the first place? Melissa White says she spent two years waylaying her parents to let her study the violin. Her first inspiration to become a musician had quite literally come after she saw violin prodigy Itzhak Perlman perform in an episode of the children's television programme, Sesame Street. Cuban-born Ilmar Gavilan was coaxed by his parents to start the violin and he had a rigorous Russian teacher. Meanwhile, Paul Wiancho began to love the cello when his teacher first guided him into loving the music. The playing would follow. Growing up in Canada, Juan Miguel Hernandez attended a public school in Montreal that specialised in the arts and began via the Suzuki method for the viola, in between swimming, riding and circus school. Different routes.

Challenged as to what the critics have meant when they say the Harlem Quartet brings a fresh attitude to its music, the four musicians speak about their energy, a particularly positive energy. They explain they talk with their audiences and reach out to them as if they are in an intimate gathering with good friends. They add that they work hard to demonstrate their obvious enjoyment of what they are doing on stage. That, and the mix of jazz idioms and music, together with a serious attention to the exacting details of the classical standards they play. Maybe they bring some of the spontaneity of jazz to their classical performances as well.

Asked about South African music, they say they are intrigued about discovering contemporary classical music that has a genuine African flavour. They say they are very interested in finding out more about this music new to them. And they should be, too: there are riches here.

And why did they come to Africa? What do they think they are contributing? Boiled down to one word, it is "outreach". Hernandez explains that reaching out to young students could be the turning point for some of them to aim for a life in music. And for student musicians already studying, the quartet's members say they have a desire to show that classical music can be "cool", it is much more expansive than just the stuffy stuff in a concert hall performed by old men wearing white ties and tails.

Hernandez adds - as the others nod in agreement - how much this opportunity links back to some of his other outreach experiences in places like Colombia, where music education is beginning to be modelled on the Venezuelan national systema music-training initiative. Sometimes they find themselves working with young students they first met years ago. This makes one feel really useful.

Gavilan says this is a key part of the stewardship of music all musicians must grasp. He explains: "The survival of classical music doesn't depend on a few old rich people, but the ambassadorship by musicians that they must take on as a role for themselves, on behalf of a universal language that touches the deepest emotions."

This reminds one of conductor Colin Davis' insistence that orchestral outreach, open houses and hands-on introductions to the instruments for small children are the way to capture a young audience - otherwise, soon enough, there will be no audience left to play for.

We wind up our conversation on a lighter note, wondering how to make the very idea of concert-going "cooler" for would-be audiences: Should serious music concerts start to emulate sports events? Should musicians allow audiences to applaud whenever they wish between the movements of a work? Should organizers even sell fast food in the aisles to help keep the audience in their seats?

Well, maybe not that latter idea, but by helping knock down the racial, class, economic barriers and snobbery that too often is married to this art form, the four members of the Harlem Quartet are contributing to the continuation of an art form they clearly love, whenever and wherever they perform. DM

In addition to additional master classes and workshops in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban, the Harlem Quartet has a public performance in Cape Town in association with the Hout Bay Music Project at the V&A Waterfront Amphitheatre, 30 April, starting at 14:30.

Watch the full episode. See more On Canvas.

The organization provides instruments and scholarship money ($1.5 million so far). Participants in its performance classes can enter annual competitions for cash prizes and an opportunity to tour with the Sphinx Chamber Orchestra, which played at Carnegie Hall on Tuesday evening.

The ensemble, conducted by Damon Gupton, opened its program with a shimmering, lovingly shaped reading of Sibelius's Andante Festivo. All the hallmarks of a first-rate string ensemble were in place: its tone was warm and varied, it moved with unity and fluidity, and its textures were appealingly transparent. Those qualities, reconfigured to yield a trim, Classical sound, enlivened a brisk performance of Mendelssohn's youthful String Symphony No. 7.

Mr. Gupton also led a lilting account of "Coqueteos," a seductively melodic movement from Gabriela Lena Frank's "Leyendas: An Andean Walkabout," and closed the program with the hard-driven finale of Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson's Sinfonietta No. 1.

Solo and chamber performances were interspersed with the orchestral scores. The Catalyst Quartet, a new ensemble sponsored by Sphinx, played the Allegro Rustico movement from Ginastera's Quartet No. 2 with an earthy vigor that made you wonder why whoever assembles Sphinx's programs did not have them offer the complete work.

Elena Urioste and Melissa White, two superb violinists whose performances were also highlights of last year's concert, returned to collaborate on a sizzling, acidic account of Prokofiev's Sonata for Two Solo Violins (Op. 56).

A third violinist, Randall Goosby, the first-prize winner in the junior division of this year's Sphinx Competition, exerted a masterly level of control and lavished an exquisite tone on Ysaÿe's unaccompanied Sonata No. 3. Mr. Goosby does not yet have a fully developed sense of how to fill a phrase with drama, but that will come: he is only 13, and his performance won him a deserved standing ovation for its sheer virtuosity.

HARLEM QUARTET VIOLIST JUAN MIGUEL HERNANDEZ WINS FIRST PRIZE AT THE 16^TH INTERNATIONAL JOHANNES BRAHMS COMPETITION

Twenty-four-year-old violist Juan Miguel Hernandez was awarded first place in his instrument's category at the prestigious International Johannes Brahms Competition earlier this month in Pörtschach, Austria. Each year, the International Johannes Brahms Competition draws more than 400 musicians from over 40 nations to compete in six instrument categories including viola, violin cello, piano, voice and chamber music. This year 54 violists traveled to Austria to compete in three rounds of competition, beginning August 30 with a final concert for the prize winners of each category held on September 6. Winners of the competition were chosen by a select committee of jurors and evaluated on the mastery of their instrument, musical artistry, expression and style.

Mr. Hernandez adds this first place prize to a distinguished list of honors, including the Gold Achievement award of the 9^th National Sphinx Competition and the 1^st place award in the National Canadian Music Competition. As a soloist, he has appeared with the Atlanta, Seattle and Colorado Symphonies, and the Rochester Philharmonic. Following his performance of Carl Stamitz's Viola Concerto with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution said: "Hernandez played with understated virtuosity-tender, lyrical and loaded with personality."

Mr. Hernandez is a founding member of the Harlem Quartet, an ensemble comprised of first-place laureates of the National Sphinx Competition. Since its critically acclaimed debut performance at Carnegie Hall in 2006 and numerous return appearances thereafter, the quartet partnered with White Pine Music label to release their 2007 debut recording, "Take the A Train," a disc of works by Wynton Marsalis and Billy Strayhorn, among others. The ensemble focuses on the advancement of diversity in classical music and the engagement of new audiences through the presentation of varied repertoire, including those of minority composers. In December 2008, the quartet performed at the National Library of Congress on Stradivarius instruments from the Library's collection. Wrote the Washington Post: "Violist Juan Miguel Hernandez drew the sweetest, most sonorous tone from the 'Cassavetti' Stradivarius in his hands for the evening." Mr. Hernandez and the Harlem Quartet's upcoming engagements include a performance with Itzhak Perlman at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art on October 3, a concert at Carnegie Hall on October 7, and a performance at the U.S. Ambassador to the U.K.'s residence in London on October 19. The quartet's second album, an all-Piston recording, will be released by Naxos in 2010.

Born in Montréal, Canada of Dominican parentage, Juan Miguel Hernandez began studying the violin at seven years old, switching to viola at age 12. Mr. Hernandez is a senior faculty member at the Sphinx Performance Academy at the Walnut Hill School and is currently completing his studies with Paul Coletti at the Colburn Conservatory of Music. Mr. Hernandez was recently signed by Sciolino Artist Management and joins a distinguished roster of such artists as pianist Misha Dichter and cellist Carter Brey. For further information visit Juan Miguel Hernandez's website, www.hernandezjm.com.

###

The Harlem Quartet is co-managed by SAM and the Sphinx Organization.

Eastern venues include Bowling Green State University (Bowling Green, OH), Tuesday Musical Association (Akron, OH), the August Wilson Center for African American Culture (Pittsburgh, PA), Oberlin College (Oberlin, OH), Bridgewater College (Bridgewater, VA), the Porter Center (Brevard, NC), North Carolina A&T State University (Greensboro, NC), Eastman School of Music (Rochester, NY), Old Dominion University (Norfolk, VA), and Carnegie Hall (New York, NY).

West Coast stops include University of Carlifornia at Chico (Chico, CA) and Cerritos Center (Cerritos, CA).

This year's conductor is Damon Gupton, assistant conductor of the Kansas City Symphony; the program includes works by Mozart, Astor Piazzolla, Guido Gavilán, Tchaikovsky, Wynton Marsalis, Vivaldi and Michael Abels.

Both Harlem Quartet and violinist Elena Urioste will play prominent roles in each performance.