Chiarina’s eighth season opened with a multi-day celebration of music in Capitol Hill with the Attacca Quartet! We would like to thank the Capitol Hill Community Foundation for honoring us with the inaugural John Franzén Award for the Arts, which made this project possible.  

On Thursday and Friday, DCPS students in Capitol Hill’s Stuart Hobson Middle School, Eliot Hine Middle School, and Eastern High School experienced individualized performances during their music classes. Chiarina also welcomed students from throughout the DMV in a free event at St. Mark’s Church preceding the first evening’s concert.

Then, two evening concerts brought listeners out of a cold and rainy weekend and into the warmth of music by Beethoven, Shostakovich, Schubert, Ravel, and Shaw. The spark of the evenings came from both sides: energy and artistry from this Grammy Award-winning quartet, as well as the audience, whose presence made the performance even more special. 

Described the following day as “ebullient” by WETA’s Classical Score, and “exhilarating” in the Washington Classical Review, the interpretations of these works felt both energetically new and comfortably familiar. With so many selections that the artists described as the “best music of all time,” this program was meant to be shared and experienced together — thank you for joining us!