The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Verona Quartet in residence for 2020-21
The Verona Quartet, winners of Chamber Music America’s Cleveland Quartet Award for 2020, will serve as quartet-in-residence at Oberlin Conservatory for the 2020-21 academic year, according to a news release from Oberlin College.
The ensemble’s focus includes secondary lessons and chamber music coaching with students from the College of Arts and Sciences, as well as collaborations with the Oberlin Arts and Sciences Orchestra, which consists of standout musicians from the college as well as members of the community.
The quartet also will perform a series of concerts throughout the upcoming season, the release said.
Established by Chamber Music America in 1995, the Cleveland Quartet Award promotes the career development of young string quartets of exceptional promise.
Previous winners include such renowned ensembles as the Pacifica, Jupiter and Mirò quartets, all of which feature Oberlin alumni, the release said.
The Verona Quartet has earned acclaim for its championing of contemporary repertoire and composers, as well as its numerous interdisciplinary collaborations.
Among them are performances with Dance Heginbotham of New York City, an artistic exchange with poets from the United Arab Emirates, and performances with the folk trio I’m With Her, made possible through the Kennedy Center’s Direct Current Festival, the release said.
Hailed as “outstanding” by The New York Times, the quartet won the 2015 Concert Artist Guild competition and has performed in such famed venues as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center and Wigmore Hall.
Its debut recording, “Diffusion,” featuring works by Ravel, Szymanowski, and Janá ek, is forthcoming on Azica Records, the release said.
The quartet consists of violinists Jonathan Ong and Dorothy Ro, violist Abigail
Rojansky, and cellist Jonathan Dormand.
The residency represents a homecoming for Rojansky, a 2011 Oberlin Conservatory graduate.
Like her Verona colleagues, she gravitated toward chamber music early in her career—and ultimately to the sort of boundary-bending collaborations that have become a hallmark of the Verona
Quartet’s young career.
“I have always been so thankful for the ways Oberlin opens students up to opportunities and encourages you to pursue your passions,” Rojansky says. “I left Oberlin with the sense that I could do whatever I wanted to.
“There were no limitations, and this quartet grew out of that same sensibility.”
“With the Verona Quartet at Oberlin, we will be providing our college students with the highest level of musical instruction,” says Sibbi Bernhardsson, professor of violin at Oberlin and a former coach of the quartet at Indiana, when he also was a member of the Pacifica Quartet.
Bernhardsson notes that the quartet will live in Oberlin for the 2020-21 season, to better facilitate opportunities for robust collaboration with students.
“Part of what I think is so exciting is that they are not commuting in and out of town and trying to fit Oberlin into their tour schedule,” he says. “They will be here as part of our community, and they will be able to do very meaningful work with our students.
“They will serve as very important role models — not just for our college students, but for our conservatory students as well.”
The Verona Quartet’s Oberlin residency is made possible through the generosity of Richard L. Clark ‘62, a physician and avid cellist who performed in the Oberlin Orchestra while pursuing zoology studies at Oberlin College, and by an anonymous gift from the family of a current Oberlin student to support enhanced musical offerings for students in the College of Arts and Sciences.