The Artaria String Quartet first established in Boston Massachusetts and currently resides in Minnesota. The quarter was formed by Ray Shows, Nancy Oliveros, Annalee Wolf, and Patricia Ryan. The group currently has a residence at Sundin Music Hall on the campus of Hamline University and previously held a residence at Viterbo University and Boston College.
Artaria Quartet has been described as an exceptional ensemble with impressive confidence in its interpretations as well as Minnesota’s foremost teaching and performing string quartet. Recently the ensemble has celebrated 30 years of chamber music performances. With that comes numerous opportunities to travel and awards earned. The group has traveled to Europe, most notably France, Canada, and all over the United States. Their playing has awarded them with the National Endowment for the Arts award as well as the Minnesota State Arts Board for excellence in performance and educational outreach.
Artaria won the Minnesota State Arts Board for excellence through their music school called the Artaria Chamber Music School or ACMS for short. The school is a premier weekly string chamber music program based in Saint Paul that features the Artaria String Quartet and renowned guest artists. Every April, the school competes in the Saint Paul String Quartet Competition, which showcases the nation’s top high school-age string quartets. Artaria believes in the power of music and the importance of music education so it has dedicated the school to provide students with a musical mentor that allows them to share, create community, make friends, and make something happen all through the power of music.
Violinist, Ray Shows is passionate about 20th-century music and has recorded music of today’s leading composers, including Gunther Schuller, Augusta Read Thomas, Marjorie Merryman, and Thomas Oboe Lee. In 2010, Ray was named MNSOTA Studio Teacher of the year. His students are concerto soloists, scholarship recipients at renowned American music schools, are prizewinners at national competitions, and have appeared on National Public Radio From the Top. Shows also received the coveted Director’s Award and graduated with distinction from Boston University and Florida State University in Violin Performance.
Nancy Oliveros is also a violin player. Nancy was a fellowship student at Aspen, Kneisel Hall, and the Florida Festival and was a graduate teaching assistant at The Florida State University and Boston University studying violin and chamber music. Nancy is a founding member of the ASQ and a 2004 McKnight Fellow.
Annalee Wolf is the viola player for ASQ and she has received her undergraduate degree at the North Carolina School of the Arts. Wolf has earned a Premier Prix in viola performance from the Royal Conservatory in Brussels, and subsequently studied chamber music and the humanities at eh European Mozart Academy. Her talents have allowed her to play in places in Europe, Canada, and the U.S. as both a guest solo artist and as part of an ensemble.
Patricia Ryan is the cello player for ASQ. Patricia has completed her second Masters of Music at Rice University Shepherd School of music on a full-tuition scholarship. Patricia has participated and received the top prize in the Plowman, Coleman, and Fischoff Chamber Music Competitions and has [performed internationally in Portugal and China as part of the Viana de Castello International Music Festival and the San Francisco-Shanghai International Chamber Music Festival.
As a group, ASQ has stated that Artaria is a conversation among equals, each voice is heard and respected and the remarkable music we are privileged to study and perform guides us through the greatest thoughts and emotions humanity can express.
“Our greatest joy as curators of the great medium of string playing has been to see students in our coaching programs grow into the awareness that they are part of something greater than themselves.”
“Our next challenge is presenting the cycle of string quartets of Beethoven. We feel honored to have this opportunity and are delighted to share our love of chamber music with the people of Minnesota and beyond.”
The Artaria String Quartet will perform on March 15 at 2 p.m. in the Narthex of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church and School in Waverly, IA.

Heng-Jin Park, the new Artistic Director of Halcyon Music Festival, has been heralded as a “pianist of unusual artistry and musical imagination,” by the Washington Post.  Richard Dyer of the Boston Globe also wrote of Ms. Park, “A centered musician with uncommon control over the sonorous possibilities of her instrument; she plays boldly with a full spectrum of colors.” 
Ms. Park is renowned for her versatility as a soloist, chamber musician, pedagogue, and music director. 
Ms. Park started playing the piano at age five and made her solo debut with the Boston Pops in Symphony Hall at age 15 performing the Schumann Piano Concerto.  She has had numerous engagements with the Boston Pops, and has also made concerto appearances with the Boston Classical Orchestra, Boston Philharmonic, New England Philharmonic, L’Orchestre Symphonique Française, and many others. She has given solo recitals in Boston’s Jordan Hall, Alice Tully Hall, the Library of Congress, Ambassador Hall in California, and the Gardner Museum in Boston, as well as concerts in Canada, France, Switzerland and Korea. Ms. Park has also been featured in the Boston Celebrity Series. 
Heng-Jin Park is a passionate chamber member and founding member and current pianist of the Boston Trio. With the Boston Trio, Ms. Park has performed internationally in some of the most respected concert series and venues, including Carnegie Hall, Jordan Hall, Ozawa Hall at Tanglewood, Merkin Concert Hall in New York, Sanders Theater, UCLA, Cape Cod Chamber Music Festival, Sanibel Festival in Florida, Detroit Pro Musica, Chamber Music Society of Williamsburg, Rockefeller University, and Kolarac Hall in Belgrade, Serbia, Rockport Chamber Music Festival, and Univ of Winnipeg, Canada.The trio has been in residence at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and at the New England Conservatory Preparatory School. 
Outside of her work with Boston Trio, Ms. Park has been a guest artist with First Monday Concert Series in Jordan Hall, Maui Classical Music Festival, Andover Chamber Music Series, the Boston Chamber Music Society, Boston Musica Viva, Music at Eden’s Edge, Market Square Concerts in Pennsylvania, the University of Kansas, Penn State, Park University in Missouri, ArtMusic Concerts in Dallas, and the Walden Chamber Players. She has collaborated with such artists as the Borromeo String Quartet, the Fry Street Quartet, Abel Pereira, Wendy Warner, Martin Chalifour, David Hardy, members of the Ying Quartet, Peter Stumpf, Ronald Thomas, and Andres Diaz. Ms. Park has made numerous appearances on WGBH and other NPR stations around the country, and she has recorded for Albany and Centaur Records. 
In addition to her performing activities, Ms. Park enjoys an international reputation as a pedagogue of both piano and chamber music. As an Artist-in-Residence at Harvard University, she has received the university’s Certificate of Distinction in Teaching award numerous times.  She is also on the piano faculty at MIT and the New England Conservatory Preparatory School, has taught chamber music at Tanglewood Music Center and the Walnut Hill School, and gives frequent master classes worldwide. 
Ms. Park held the position of artistic director of Killington Music Festival in Vermont from 2011 to 2013. 
Born in Korea and raised in the Boston area, Ms. Park studied with Leonard Shure and Russell Sherman at the New England Conservatory.  While receiving her bachelor and master's degrees at NEC, she won several awards and prizes including the Tourjée Grant for graduate study and the Frank H. Beebe Grant for study abroad.  She also worked with Marie-Françoise Bucquet at Conservatoire Nationale Superieur de la Musique de Paris. She currently resides in Cambridge, Massachusetts. ​

Jonah Ellsworth is acclaimed as one of the greatest cellists of his generation. Ellsworth has won critical acclaim for his solo performances with the Boston Symphony, Akron Symphony, Boston Philharmonic, Jacksonville Symphony, and New Bedford Symphony, among others. Ellsworth has been referred to as “a kind of unrepentant Tannhäuser” and “a player to watch,” by The Boston Globe and Clevelandclassical.com. The Boston Musical Intelligencer wrote that he is “fearless, [with a] complete range of expressive richness” and “definitely a player to watch.” These praises were earned after performances of the Saint-Saëns Cello Concerto with the Boston Philharmonic, the Dvořák Cello Concerto with the Akron Symphony, and his performance of Strauss’s Don Quixote with the Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra (BPYO). 
Ellsworth was featured as a soloist with the New Bedford Symphony on their regular subscription series in 2012, performed as a soloist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in Symphony Hall in 2011, and with Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra under the baton of the late Gunther Schuller. He was invited to participate at Marlboro Music Festival for 2014, 2015, and will return next summer. He is a member of the cello section of the Boston Philharmonic. 
When Ellsworth recently performed Strauss’s Don Quixote with conductor Benjamin Zander and the BPYO in Prague, former Boston Globe critic Richard Dyer wrote “Ellsworth’s grasp of what the notes mean, of the stories they tell, of the feeling behind and within the notes, is firm, and very deep. His playing of some of the quieter episodes, the yearning that Don Q feels for the idealized Dulcinea, was profoundly moving, and there was a high amount of energy as he tilted against windmills and scattered sheep. And he plays the death sigh of Don Quixote as tenderly and movingly as I have ever heard it – it is with a profound content that this Don Quixote he leaves this life, and not with a sigh of regret.” On this same tour, Ellsworth performed the Dvořák Concerto in Basel, Switzerland. The following is Dyer’s comparison of this performance to that of Natalia Gutman (a legendary Russian cellist who was also soloist with BPYO on this tour): “Ellsworth’s performance was the more mature, serene and centered, and he played with technical mastery, imagination, passion and deep feeling and he was fearless, despite the fact that moments before the concert his cello was knocked over and the bridge was cracked.” 
His performance of the Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations with YPO in Slovakia prompted the critic from The Boston Musical Intelligencer to write, “… Any praise of Jonah’s technical abilities is likely to be an understatement. He is completely assured and intensely musical; each of the variations had a distinctive character and tone color… This is a young man on the verge of an international career.” 
Ellsworth was finalist of the 2011 Stulberg International String Competition in Michigan and received top prize from the Harvard Musical Association in 2012. He appeared on the PBS TV show of the “From the Top” taped live in Carnegie Hall in New York City which has been broadcast on PBS stations nationwide. 
Ellsworth has studied with Lawrence Lesser at New England Conservatory and Peter Wiley at Curtis Institute of Music. Other teachers include Andrew Mark and Natasha Brofsky. He has attended Meadowmount Music School where he studied with Hans Jansen, Greenwood Music Camp, Orford Arts Center in Canada. ​

Movies and classical music are the perfect duo. Classical music has a timeless and recognizable quality, and it contains such passionate emotional and intellectual expression that it simply cannot be left out of the soundtrack behind a great fight scene or an emotional speech.
Movies were created to use pictures to evoke emotions and feelings among audiences, and classical compositions were written to do the same thing using instrumentals and vocals, so it makes sense that they are so commonly pieced together.
If you turn on any movie or TV show, there is a chance that you will hear at least one piece of classical music. Whether it is a full chorus of brass during battle or a clip of strings during a suspenseful moment, there is a major likelihood that you will experience at least one classical piece coming from the speakers.
Back in the 18th century and early 19th century, classical pieces were the backbone of operas. An opera is a dramatic performance set to music with singers and instrumentalists. Movies are the modern-day opera and the popular performance art of our time. The standard classical music style originated shortly before the creation of operas, and thus, the two were made to fit together. Because movies are akin to operas, it is apparent that classical music belongs in the soundtracks of movies.
When you see a movie, the music reflects what is happening on the screen. Somber music adds to somber images, suspenseful music adds to suspenseful actions, etc. When used correctly, using classical music in movies will increase the overall impact of emotions and feelings that the movie is trying to evoke.
While some movies use classical music from classical era composers such as Bach, Beethoven and Wagner, other movies use music from contemporary classical composers.
Movies such as “Jurassic Park,” “Schindler’s List” and “Titanic” all have very famous soundtracks that were commissioned from contemporary-classical composers. Contemporary-classical composers are people that write classical music in modern times. Contemporary-classical music follows the same style and structure of the classical era, but it’s written more recently and has more modern influences.
“Jurassic Park” and “Schindler’s List” soundtracks were created by the same composer: John Williams. Williams is arguably the most prominent movie soundtrack composer of the 21st century, doing movies such as “Star Wars,” “E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial,” “Home Alone,” “Jaws” and many more.
Pieces from composers such as Williams are constantly being played by bands of all ages and skill-levels alongside classical era pieces. The prominence of contemporary classical music in movie soundtracks is creating a musical environment in which modern works are becoming almost as recognizable as those from the 18th to 19th century.