Join the Cultural Council on Saturday, June 18, as we present The Three Haiku for String Quartet, based on three Japanese “death poems.” Death poems were written at the end of the poet’s life, sometimes only a day or so before passing. The poems were meant to provide a reaction to the life that was lived or some final realization and understanding of of life.

This event is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served.

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Michael Bies (b. 1980) is a composer, pianist and educator currently living in Columbia, SC. Bies’ music has been performed and read around the country at various festivals and by sundry new music ensembles including Brooklyn Rider, The Other Music Ensemble, ETHOS New Music Society, Itch Ensemble, The Abraxas Saxophone Quartet, the Frontwave New Music Festival, and Pheonix Song. His music is often influenced by the visual arts or literature and he primarily writes for chamber ensembles, solo instrumentalists, and voice with piano or mixed chamber ensemble. He is in the midst of writing a new work for soprano saxophone and piano commissioned by a consortium of several saxophonists around the country.

Bies holds a bachelors and two masters degrees from the State University of New York at Fredonia and is presently a doctoral candidate at the University of South Carolina where he teaches music theory and aural skills as a graduate assistant and is on the faculty of the USC Community Music Studios and also is owner and instructor of Opus Music Institute with his wife Azusa in Palm Beach County, Florida.

Kevonna Shuford has attended the Meadowmount School of Music for the past 3 summers, where she studied under Patricia McCarty, Ivan Zenaty, Steven Rochen, Jonathan Koh and Walter Schwede. Now a graduate of A.W. Dreyfoos School of the Arts (class of 2016), she studied with Laurice Buckton, a former principal violist for the Atlantic Classical Orchestra. She continues to excel musically and has served as principal and assistance principal violist for the 2013-2016 Florida All-State Orchestras. She was apart of the New York String Orchestra Seminar 2015 performing with artist such as Emanual Ax, and Jinjoo Cho in Carnegie under the baton of Jaime Laredo.

Kevonna is passionate about music and enjoys entertaining. She performs weekly at her church and volunteered with the Canon Quartet to provide music for weddings, dinners and other social events. She invests time coaching younger musicians, inspiring passion for the arts. Her future goal is to perform in chamber ensembles, professionally. This Summer Kevonna will embark on a month long tour of Europe with the National Youth Orchestra USA. Kevonna will be attending the New England Conservatory studying under Martha Strongin Katz fall of 2016.

Javier Otalora was born and raised in West Palm Beach, Florida and began playing violin at age six under the tutelage of Susan Rogberg at the U.B Kinsey Elementary School of the Arts. His primary teachers included Nicholas Christodoulidis, Steven Majeski, Antonio Rincon, and Huifang Chen. From the ages of eleven to fourteen, Javier received straight superiors for his performances at the state of Florida’s Solo and Ensemble festivals.

At the age of fifteen, he made his Carnegie Hall debut as part of the “High School Honors Performance Series” and once more as concertmaster of the Dreyfoos Philharmonic Orchestra at the age of sixteen. When he was seventeen, Javier collaborated under the baton of world renowned conductor Michael Tilson Thomas in a concert of the “Berio violin duos” alongside members of the New World Symphony Orchestra at the New World Center in Miami, Florida. That same year, he played a private recital for the Ambassadors of Mexico and Spain at Mar-O-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida. Javier is currently studying violin performance at the Oberlin Conservatory with the esteemed Gregory Fulkerson on a Deans Scholarship.

Tyler James is an established soloist and chamber musician performing in the New York City Metropolitan area. Tyler has performed solo works and chamber music in venues all around the world including Carnegie Hall, Merkin Hall, the Château Grimaldi at Cagnes-sur-Mer, the Juilliard School’s Morse Hall, St. Paul’s Church, and the Mirabell Palace. As a result of his work with the Elektra String Quartet, Tyler has been in residency with both the Enso String Quartet in Seattle and the Zodiac Trio in Nice, France. He has performed in master classes for acclaimed cellists including Alisa Weilerstein, David Finckel, Natasha Brofsky, and Mark Kosower. Tyler was recently featured in the Wall Street Journal for his performances with Groupmuse, a Boston based start-up working to bring classical chamber concerts back into people’s personal apartments all over New York City. In collaboration with Maestro JoAnn Falletta, Tyler was invited to perform select works by Igor Stravinsky during the pre-concert lecture for the 100th anniversary of The Rite of Spring with the Virginia Arts Festival. Tyler currently studies with internationally recognized pedagogue Marion Feldman on scholarship at New York University.

Ericsson Hatfield was born in Palm Beach Gardens and began his violin studies with Maree Sawhney at age 5. Since then, he has gone on to perform in Carnegie Hall, Chicago Symphony Hall and attend the prestigious Meadowmount Summer Academy of Music. At Meadowmount he studied with Sally Thomas, Ann Setzer and Steven Rochen. He began composition studies with Michael Bies during his high school career and has gone on to premiere numerous works for string quartet and piano, and has acquired various commissions. He is currently in collaboration with Czech historical pianist Petra Matejová, producing new music in classical and baroque styles. His passions are teaching, reading, writing, painting and sailing.