• Joseph Haydn (1732–1809)

  String Quartet in D Major, Op. 20, no. 4
  Allegro di molto
  Un poco adagio ed affettuoso
  Menuet alla Zingarese
  Presto e scherzando

• Laura Valborg Aulin (1860–1928)

  String Quartet No. 1 in F Major
  Allegro con grazia
  Intermezzo: Allegro con spirito e capriccioso
  Andante espressivo
  Finale: Allegro vivace

Our Tucson Series, featuring the best professional musicians in Southern Arizona, continues with a dynamic quartet.

Violinist Timothy Kantor is Assistant Professor of Music at the University of Arizona. As a member of the Afiara Quartet in Toronto, Kantor has performed hundreds of concerts and collaborated with a wide range of artists. Previously Kantor was concertmaster of the Evansville Philharmonic and founding member of the Larchmere String Quartet, in residence at the University of Evansville (Indiana). In addition to being on the faculty at the U of A, Kantor teaches at the Kinhaven Music School in Vermont and the Programa Gabriel del Orbe in Santo Domingo.

Laura Casarez recently graduated with her Master’s degree in violin performance from the University of Arizona and was a member of the FFSOM Graduate String Quartet and travelled through the U.S., Canada, and China performing at music festivals and chamber music competitions. Laura is a private violin instructor and performs with the Tucson Symphony Orchestra.

Violinist Emily Chao joined the Tucson Symphony Orchestra in 2017 and regularly performs on the violin and viola with other orchestras in Southern Arizona. As a founding member of Chamberhood, a community-oriented chamber music series, she collaborates with local venues, commissions new works from local composers and makes classical music more accessible to the public. Chao graduated in 2013 with a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Boston University, where she completed a dissertation on Karol Szymanowski’s First Violin Concerto, op 35. She also holds Bachelors and Masters degrees from New England Conservatory.

Cellist Juan David Mejia, originally from Medellin Columbia, completed his early musical studies at Universidad Javeriana. Upon moving to the United States at the age of seventeen, he was accepted into the prestigious preparatory program at the Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan before matriculating to the San Francisco Conservatory of Music to complete his Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees. In 2016 he was the recipient of one of the prestigious graduate Fellowship awards at The University of Arizona. With Chao, as well as Carla Fabris, he is a co-founder of Chamberhood. In 2019, he received his Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the U of A.

Kantor, Casarez, and Mejia are AFCM Board members.