Saturday, July 27, 2019

KansasCity.com: Harlem Quartet — ‘a face that diversifies classical music’

Harlem Quartet’s mission is to address “the under-representation of people of color in classical music.”


Read more here: https://www.kansascity.com/entertainment/arts-culture/article233056387.html#storylink=cpy

The Kansas City Star

Harlem Quartet — ‘a face that diversifies classical music’ — is coming to JCCC


The Detroit-based Sphinx Organization has been bringing social justice to classical music since 1997.

As part of its mission of “addressing the under-representation of people of color in classical music,” Sphinx founded the Harlem Quartet in 2006. The ensemble is still going strong and will bring its unique mix of European classical, jazz and Latin music to the Polsky Theatre at the Carlsen Center on July 31.

Violinist Melissa White, one of two founding members still in the quartet, recalled how the group began.

“Sphinx had gotten grants and funding from Target, and through these grants they were going to present music in public schools in and around the greater New York City area,” White said. “Sphinx thought it would be a great idea to form a group for the project, and so the quartet was created from former first prize winners of Sphinx’s yearly national competition. We went around to every school in Harlem playing classical music. It was a fun project, but we had no idea that one day it would turn out to be a full-time job.”

The New York City-area project has now become what White calls “an adventurous career” that has taken the Harlem Quartet around the world. But White’s personal musical journey goes back to when she was only 4 years old and saw Itzhak Perlman on “Sesame Street.”

“When the show was over, I asked my mom for a violin so I could play, and she didn’t say yes, but she didn’t say no,” White said. “She figured whatever came up on ‘Sesame Street’ the next day I would probably ask for that, too. But it didn’t change. For the next two years I only asked for a violin, Christmas, Easter, birthday. Finally, when I was 6 years old, I got a violin.”

And she’s been playing ever since. White has received performance degrees from both the Curtis Institute of Music and the New England Conservatory of Music and has studied with legendary violinists like Jaime Laredo and Miriam Fried. She’s also performed as soloist with some of America’s greatest orchestras, like the Cleveland Orchestra, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and the Boston Pops.

Luckily for local music lovers, the next stop for White and her colleagues is the Carlsen Center.

***

7 p.m. July 31. Polsky Theatre, Carlsen Center, Johnson County Community College, 12345 College Blvd., Overland Park. $10-$25. 913-469-4445 or https://tinyurl.com/y4xwuwl2.

Read more here: https://www.kansascity.com/entertainment/arts-culture/article233056387.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: https://www.kansascity.com/entertainment/arts-culture/article233056387.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: https://www.kansascity.com/entertainment/arts-culture/article233056387.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: https://www.kansascity.com/entertainment/arts-culture/article233056387.html#storylink=cpy

Comment by email:
Thanks for this, Bill! Looking forward to returning to Overland Park.

Best wishes,
HQ

Rea
d more here: https://www.kansascity.com/entertainment/arts-culture/article233056387.html#storylink=cpy

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