Join the Academy String Quartet for an afternoon concert in the beautiful setting of Zion’s Lutheran Church. Cost is $20 per person, reserve online or you may also pay at the door.

Musicians: Jorie-Butler-Geyer and Leah Givelber, violins; Warren Davidson, viola and Cecilia Caughman, cello

“Music of Freedom and Independence is a program of great music connected to the yearning for personal freedom or national independence. You will hear stirring music by Josef Suk, specifically intended to inspire the Czech people to free themselves from Austrian domination at the outset of World War I, and the more subtle Czech nationalism of his father-in-law, Antonin Dvořák, in a lovely string quartet that uses forms and rhythms of Bohemian folk music. We recognize the fight against foreign invasion in Ukraine with an Elegy by Ukrainian composer Vasily Barvinsky, himself a political prisoner of the Soviet Union for 18 years. Bulgaria was under Turkish domination for nearly 500 years, and yet Bulgarian folk music not only survived but shows barely a trace of Turkish influence; the Academy String Quartet plays brand-new Bulgarian Suite by Pittsburgher Thomas Roncevic. Finally, American composer Adolphus Hailstork’s Variation on Swing Low, Sweet Chariot expresses the rage of enslaved people and their longing for release from oppression. Beauty, pride, anger, perseverance, grief, faith, and hope are all represented in this concert.” ~Warren Davidson, Academy Concerts Director