Miró Quartet to perform complete Beethoven string quartets

12 livestreamed concerts July 16 – August 8, PLUS An OICMF encore evening on Friday, August 14

— from Linda Slone for Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival —

For their first major project since the coronavirus outbreak, the Miró Quartet will come together in person to perform all sixteen Beethoven string quartets and the Grosse Fuge live for online audiences via the streaming platform OurConcerts.live. Since mid-March, members of the Quartet have been apart, isolating separately at home with their families.

Upon reuniting for this series, they will follow strict protocols in their daily lives to mitigate the risk of virus transmission among themselves. The
complete cycle will be broadcast live from a private performance space modeled after Tuscan architecture in the Quartet’s home city of Austin, Texas, and the video feed will be professionally produced in real time, with multiple cameras and high-quality sound.

The cycle takes the place of both the originally planned, in-person Miró Quartet performances in June at Orcas Center and the planned annual August Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival. The new series also serves to continue the worldwide celebration of Beethoven’s 250th birthday, which has been interrupted by the pandemic.

Closing the series will be an OICMF Encore Evening on August 14. This Festival finale features performances for Founder and Artistic Director/violinist-violist Aloysia Friedmann and Artistic Advisor/pianist Jon Kimura Parker with other Festival artists, interspersed with curated archival video footage from past Festival seasons.

Presented by the Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival, this 13-evening, subscription-based concert series is scheduled for July 16 to August 14—Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 5:30 p.m. Pacific Standard Time. Each evening will be hosted live by Aloysia Friedmann and will feature pre-recorded cameo appearances by a variety of OICMF friends and family.

Following each livestream, the performance will remain online for on-demand viewing for 24 hours for ticket holders. Season pass holders will have access to the concerts through August 15.

Tickets are available via oicmf.org and at OurConcerts.live, and are $20 for individual concerts, $90 for tickets to any six of the concerts, and $120 for access to the complete series.

The Miró Quartet is the Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival’s Quartet-in-Residence, and previously performed the full cycle of the Beethoven string quartets on Orcas Island in 2014. The ensemble has also surveyed these complete works at Tokyo’s Suntory Hall and Chamber Music Tulsa, and will
conclude a year-long cycle at Chamber Music Northwest this summer.

Aloysia says of the series “We are thrilled to present the Miró Quartet, live streamed to the world. To perform the sixteen Beethoven quartets within four weeks is a mammoth undertaking and an epic journey. Our Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival audiences and viewers internationally will be in the hearts of these amazing performing artists. A project of this magnitude could not have been accomplished without the great outpouring of support and love from so many. I’m grateful to all. For 23 years, we have dedicated ourselves to the highest standards of musical excellence, brought to life through visionary, creative, and innovative programming. It is our goal to present Classical Music with a View, and this summer our view is unique and exceptional.”