The accomplished young Vera Quartet are truly in the springtime of their career. Visiting Saranac for the first time on September 29, they offered a terrific program, starting with Haydn’s Opus 76 in G Major and followed by the Ravel Quartet in F Major. On paper, the second half appeared a little sketchy: four individual movements from four quartets by Schubert, Schnittke, Auerbach, and Beethoven – what was up with that? Apparently it was required repertoire for a competition they had recently participated in, and they discovered that it hung together startlingly well. It was successful, too, for our audience in that it offered great variety – instead of only three composers, we heard six!
The Veras spent a day in the Peru Central School District, conducting workshops with middle and high school string students. The students were fabulously receptive to the quartet, eager to listen and learn. The intensive school day concluded with a live performance and Q & A by the Vera Quartet, which the beginning string students from the intermediate school were invited to attend, along with the older students. It was very cool to be a string player that day and be released from other classes!
The Vera Quartet then hit the road back to Philadelphia, where they are currently quartet-in-residence at the Curtis Institute, as well as under the wing of Astral Artists, whose competition they won in 2018. Undoubtedly we will hear more from this exciting young quartet, as they are sure soon to be in demand on concert series everywhere.