(Los Angeles) The String Department at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, presents the Formosa Quartet in a new two-part, Mari and Ed Edelman String Quartet Residency. Both residencies (January and April 2019) include instrumental masterclasses, chamber music masterclasses, open rehearsals, and three concerts at UCLA's Schoenberg Hall and Taiwan Academy in Los Angeles. All concerts are free admissions and open to the public.

The first concert will take place at Taiwan Academy gallery located in Westwood on January 8^th, 2019. Partnering with Taiwan Academy in Los Angeles, Formosa Quartet presents music and art from Taiwan to promote Taiwan's diverse culture and bringing Formosan inspired music, which has been Formosa Quartet's mission ever since it was founded 16 years ago. Their newly released album "From Hungary to Taiwan" features three of Formosa Quartet's commissioned works, juxtaposes folk influenced Hungarian classical and rural masterpieces to Formosan inspired counterpart. The door will open at 6:30 pm, and there will be a light reception prior to the performance starting at 7:30pm.

The second and third concerts presented by Formosa Quartet will be at UCLA's Schoenberg Hall at 7pm on January 10^th and April 18^th. On Thursday January 10th the Formosa Quartet will perform Tchaikovsky’s String Quartet No. 1 in D major, Wei-Chieh Lin’s Pasibutbut, and Shostakovich’s String Quartet No. 3 in F major. On Thursday April 18th the Formosa Quartet will join forces with professor of cello Antonio Lysy and School of Music students to present George Enescu’s monumental and rarely heard string octet.

Che-Yen Chen, the professor of viola at Herb Alpert School of Music and founding member of the Formosa Quartet, invites his quartet colleagues to work with School of Music’s students and faculty. The members of the Formosa Quartet –Jasmine Lin, Wayne Lee, Che-Yen Chen, and Deborah Pae – have established themselves as leading soloists, chamber musicians, and pedagogues. With degrees from the Juilliard School, Curtis Institute of Music, and New England Conservatory, they have performed in major venues throughout the United States, Asia, and Europe, and have been top prizewinners in prestigious competitions such as the Paganini, Primrose, Fischoff, Naumburg, and Tertis competitions. As chamber musicians, they have appeared regularly at the Marlboro, Kingston, Santa Fe, Ottawa, Ravinia, Crans-Montana, and Schiermonnikoog festivals, as well as at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, La Jolla Summerfest, the Seattle Chamber Music Society, and Open Chamber Music at Prussia Cove. Three members of the Formosa Quartet are currently faculty at the Eastern Michigan University, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Roosevelt University, and have previously held positions at the Taos School of Music and the Juilliard School.

This series is part of the 2018-2019 Dobrow Series, which made possible by Mari Edelman and The Ed Edelman Endowment for Chamber Music.

PRESS CONTACT

Che-Yen Chen: cheyenchen@ucla.edu

Formosa Quartet: http://www.formosaquartet.com/

Ashley Sun: slc@moc.gov.tw

Taiwan Academy in Los Angeles: https://www.facebook.com/taiwanacademyla/