TICKETS are $10 General/$5 Student.

Concerts and events made possible, in part, with support from the Wells Philanthropic Services provided by grants from the John, Anna, and Martha Jane Fields Memorial Trust Foundation, Stanley A. and Flora P. Clark Memorial Community Trust Foundation, and the Florence V. Carroll Charitable Trust, The Esther and George Jaruga Charitable Foundation, the Community Foundation of St. Joseph County's ArtsEverywhere initiative, and the Arts Project Support Grant and Arts Recovery Grant through the Indiana Arts Commission. Concert support provided by the Arts Midwest Grow, Invest, Gather (GIG) Fund grant (2022-2023 season).

Our Chamber Arts and Home Grown Series presents "It's never too late for love!"  - The Euclid Quartet plays romantic and jazz music by candlelight for those who missed Valentine's Day.

EUCLID QUARTET

Resident String Quartet, Indiana University South Bend

WEBSITE

Jameson Cooper - violin

Aviva Hakanoglu - violin

Luis Enrique Vargas - viola

Justin Goldsmith - cello

The Euclid Quartet enjoys one of the most highly regarded reputations of any chamber ensemble of its generation. Captivating audiences and critics ranging from Carnegie Hall to school classrooms to radio and television broadcasts, the quartet consistently performs to enthusiastic acclaim throughout the country.

Formed in Ohio in 1998, the Euclid Quartet takes its name from the famous Euclid Avenue in Cleveland, home to a wealth of renowned artistic and cultural institutions. Within three years, the ensemble was awarded the String Quartet Fellowship of the Aspen Music Festival, where it was invited to return for the subsequent summer’s concert season. The quartet was also invited to study with the Emerson String Quartet at the Carnegie Hall Professional Training Workshop.

Highlights of the Euclid Quartet’s career include significant global recognition as the first American string quartet to be awarded a top prize at the prestigious Osaka International Chamber Music Competition. Prior to its Japanese laurels, the quartet also won awards in numerous United States competitions, including the Hugo Kauder International Competition for String Quartets, the Carmel Chamber Music Competition, and the Chamber Music Yellow Springs Competition. In 2009, the Euclid Quartet was awarded the esteemed “American Masterpieces” grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Fifteen years ago, the Euclid Quartet was appointed to the prestigious string quartet residency at Indiana University South Bend, where its members teach private lessons and coach chamber music. Passionately devoted to presenting the highest quality chamber music to young audiences, these seasoned teaching artists have performed for thousands of students and young adults, in part through support from the National Endowment for the Arts and collaborations with Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute and the Fischoff National Chamber Music Association.

The Euclid is a frequent guest ensemble at American and Canadian music festivals, among them the Mostly Modern Festival, Aspen, Great Lakes, Kent/Blossom, and Orford festivals, while expanded programs have included collaborations with internationally renowned artists, including James Dunham, Gregory Fulkerson, Warren Jones, Paul Katz, Joseph Silverstein and Alexander Toradze. As passionate advocates for new music, the Euclid Quartet has commissioned and premiered contemporary works by numerous notable composers including Robert Paterson, Armando Bayolo, Jorge Muniz, and Dan Welcher. They look forward to premiering a quartet concerto by Anna Clyne, commissioned to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Fischoff Competition in 2023.

Active in the recording studio, the Euclid Quartet recently issued a disc of Dvořák and Wynton Marsalis on Afinat Records. The Strad Magazine praised the new recording: "The members of the Euclid Quartet hurl themselves into the fray with alacrity, relishing the music's invention with contagious wit and virtuosity." Previous releases include the complete string quartets of Béla Bartók on Artek Recordings. The American Record Guide raved about these discs, “rarely has a group found such meaning and vision.” Their debut CD, on Centaur records, features the first four quartets of Hugo Kauder, a refugee from Nazi-occupied Austria who fled to the United States in the 1940s. He defied the atonal trend of his generation with his uniquely harmonic, contrapuntal style. The Euclid Quartet is eager to share its upcoming release of a CD featuring the quartets of Debussy and Grieg.

A native of Sheffield, England, Jameson Cooper took to the violin at age six. He went on to be Concertmaster of the National Youth Chamber Orchestra before earning a bachelor’s degree in violin and the Professional Performers Diploma from the Royal Northern College of Music. He continued his studies in the U.S. at the Aspen Music Festival with Dorothy Delay and Masao Kawasaki, subsequently with Roland and Almita Vamos. He holds master’s degrees in both violin performance and orchestra conducting from Kent State University. As a founding member of the Euclid Quartet, Jameson has won numerous prestigious competition prizes and an award from the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as performing in distinguished concert venues, among them New York City’s Carnegie Hall and Washington, DC’s Library of Congress and National Gallery of Art. He is the dedicatee of several new works for violin and has appeared as soloist in major halls in Europe and the U.S., most recently at The John F. Kennedy center for the Performing Arts. Jameson has given master classes at universities and colleges throughout the U.S., and he regularly serves as a judge for the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition’s senior strings division. His recordings include the six Bartók string quartets and string quartets Nos. 1-4 by Hugo Kauder, both with the Euclid Quartet, the Prokofiev works for violin and piano, and an album of contemporary solo violin repertoire. He performs on a violin crafted by Gregg Alf.

Violinist Aviva Hakanoglu was born and raised in New York City and has enjoyed a varied career as a performer, educator, and advocate for community engagement. She is a Visiting Lecturer at Indiana University South Bend, where she is a member of the Euclid Quartet, the university’s Ensemble-in-Residence. Prior to coming to South Bend, Aviva was a violinist with the Pittsburgh-based Beo String Quartet. Aviva earned her bachelor’s degree in Philosophy and Music from Harvard University. While at Harvard, she had the opportunity to work with artist William Kentridge on his Norton Lecture Drawing Lesson Six: Anti-Entropy. This experience was one of many that fueled her pursuit for interdisciplinary collaboration. She went on to complete her master’s degree from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, studying with Simin Ganatra, first violinist of the Pacifica Quartet. While at IU, she was a participant of the Pacifica Quartet Intensive Seminar and studied pedagogy with Mimi Zweig, director of the Indiana University String Academy. After finishing her master’s program, Aviva earned her Doctorate in Musical Arts from Stony Brook University, where she studied with Jennifer Frautschi, Philip Setzer, and Arnaud Sussmann. During her time at Stony Brook, she was a participant in the inaugural class of the Emerson String Quartet Institute. Aviva has appeared as a faculty artist at the Dakota Chamber Music Festival and Charlotte New Music Festival. In addition, she has held positions with the Owensboro and Terre Haute Symphony Orchestras, and has performed with ensembles around the country, including the Pittsburgh Festival Opera, Evansville Philharmonic, and Lansing Symphony. A passionate chamber musician, Aviva has collaborated and performed with renowned artists such as Atar Arad, Peter Stumpf, Lawrence Dutton, and Paul Watkins. While living in Long Island, Aviva was the assistant director of the Three Village Chamber Players, a community-based chamber music collective that provided free concerts around the area. Aviva remains committed to curating meaningful performance experiences at a variety of local venues.

Violist Luis Enrique Vargas, has been a member of the Euclid Quartet since 2001 and teaches viola and chamber music at IU South Bend. Born in Venezuela and brought up in a family of musicians, he was first introduced to the music world at age 14 when he became a member of the internationally renowned El Sistema of the Venezuelan Youth Orchestra. As a member of El Sistema, he was an active educator throughout Venezuela, and an active performer and chamber musician. He pursued studies at the Vicente Emilio Sojo and the Simon Bolivar Conservatories of Music in Venezuela. He moved to North America in 1997 where he pursued a Chamber Music Diploma at Wilfrid Laurier University in Ontario, Canada instructed by the Penderecki String Quartet. He resides in the United States since the fall of that year. While in the United States he got a master’s degree in Music Performance from Miami University of Ohio and a Performer’s Certificate from Northern Illinois University where he studied with Richard Young, violist of the Vermeer Quartet. Throughout his career, Vargas has studied with many internationally known musicians. Among them are Jose Manuel Roman, Gerard Causee, Li-Kuo Chang, James Dunham, Michael Tree, Earl Carlyss, and the Penderecki, Emerson string quartets. He is currently a member of the National Academy of the Recording Arts and Sciences (the Grammy® Awards organization), as well as an adjudicator for the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, and a member of the board of directors of the Hugo Kauder Society and advisor for their international music competition. He is, also, an adjudicator for the Music Teachers National Association Chamber Music Competition to be held at the MTNA National conference in Chicago, Ill. Other teaching positions have included the Sulzbach-Rosenberg International Music Festival in Germany and the Rocky Ridge Music Center in Colorado. With the Euclid Quartet he was awarded the Bronze Medal at the Osaka International Chamber Music Competition in Japan in 2005, the Grand Prize at the Hugo Kauder International Music Competition at Yale University in 2004, and second place at the Chamber Music Yellow Spring Competition in Ohio in 2003. Performances with the Euclid Quartet include venues such as Izumi Hall in Osaka, Japan, Weill Recital Hall and Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall, and Harris Hall at the Aspen Music Festival. He was a member of the Cuarteto America (1995-1999), and performed extensively throughout Venezuela and in Luxembourg, Germany, Colombia, Mexico, Canada, and the United States. With the Cuarteto America he attended international music festivals and attended the International Music Symposium "Strings of the Future" in Ottawa, Canada in 1997. With the orchestras of El Sistema, namely the Lara Symphony and the Simon Bolivar Orchestra, he performed in multiple tours to Brazil, Curaçao, Spain and France over a span of 9 years. With the Simon Bolivar Orchestra he recorded "Latino-American Lollipops" a compilation of Latino-American masterpieces under Dorian Label. With the Euclid Quartet he recorded the entire Bela Bartok string quartet series under Artek Label in two discs released in 2010 and 2013. He also recorded the string quartets of the Viennese composer Hugo Kauder under Centaur Records.

Justin Goldsmith is the newly appointed cellist of the Euclid Quartet, based in South Bend, Indiana. He was born and raised in Croton-on-Hudson, New York, and began violin lessons at the age of 4 before switching to the cello at age 9. Chamber music, and the string quartet, in particular, became a prominent interest early on in his musical life - according to play count on iTunes, the music he listened to most in high school was Radiohead’s “OK Computer” and the Emerson Quartet’s recordings of Beethoven’s Razumovsky quartets. After studying with cellists Julie Diesslin August, Peter Seidenberg, Julia Lichten, and David Geber, Justin began his undergraduate studies at Vanderbilt University’s Blair School of Music with Felix Wang. After receiving a bachelor’s degree in cello performance, he continued his studies at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music where he received a master’s degree under the tutelage of Peter Stumpf. While in Indiana, Justin formed the Vera Quartet, which went on to complete two-year residencies at both Indiana University and the Curtis Institute of Music. He was also a Community Artist Fellow at Curtis for two years, a fellowship position in which fellows coordinate service-based musical projects with community partners in Philadelphia. While at Vanderbilt, Justin was principal cello from 2008 to 2011 and received the Jean Keller Heard Prize for Excellence in String Playing. His string quartet was selected by the faculty to represent the Blair School of Music in Aix-en-provence, France in the summer of 2011. During his time at Indiana University, Justin served as principal cello in three of the school’s orchestras and performed alongside Joshua Bell, Joseph Swensen, Atar Arad, and Peter Stumpf. In 2016, the Vera Quartet was selected for a week-long residency at the Beethovenhaus in Bonn, Germany and in 2017 went on their first international tour representing IU in Seoul, South Korea. The quartet later went on to win numerous prizes, including the Astral Artists auditions in 2018 and top prizes at the Plowman and Yellow Springs competitions. Justin has performed in master classes with many world-renowned pedagogues including Laurence Lesser, Paul Katz, Steven Doane, Mark Kosower, and Steven Isserlis. He has played in numerous festival orchestras across the globe, working with conductors such as Naoto Otomo, Michael Gilbert, Scott Yoo, Matthias Bamert, Stéphane Denève, and François-Xavier Roth. He plays on a 2014 Jason Viseltear cello made in New York.