Viano Quartet to conclude this season’s Slee Beethoven String Quartet Cycle

The Department of Music’s 2023-24 presentation of the Slee Beethoven String Quartet Cycle will conclude this weekend when the Viano Quartet makes its Slee Hall debut to perform the second half of the cycle.

The concerts will all take place in Lippes Concert Hall in Slee.

The schedule:

Concert 4, 7:30 p.m., April 12:

• Quartet in F minor, Op. 95 (“Serioso”)
• Quartet in B-flat Major, Op. 18, No. 6
• Quartet in A minor, Op. 132

Concert 5, 7:30 p.m. April 13:

• Quartet in A Major, Op. 18, No. 5
• Quartet in B-flat Major, Op. 130

Concert 6, 3 p.m. April 14:

• Quartet in C minor, Op. 18, No. 4
• Quartet in F Major, Op. 135
• Quartet in E minor, Op. 59, No. 2

Tickets are $20 per concert and are available at TicketMaster, at the Center for the Arts box office from noon to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, or at the Slee Hall box office an hour before concert time. UB students with a valid ID are entitled to one complimentary ticket at the door.

The quartet will also work with UB students in a public coaching session from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. April 13 in Lippes Concert Hall. The session is free and open to the public.

Praised by the Boston Globe for its “virtuosity, visceral expression, and rare unity of intention,” the Viano Quartet — Lucy Wang and Hao Zhou, violin; Aiden Kane, viola; Tate Zawadiuk, violoncello — is one of the most sought-after performing young ensembles today and currently in-residence at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center Bowers Program until 2027. Since winning First Prize at the 2019 Banff International String Quartet Competition, the performers have traveled to nearly every major city across the globe, captivating audiences in New York, London, Berlin, Vancouver, Paris, Beijing, Toronto, Lucerne and Los Angeles.

UB may be the only place in the country — or the world, according to Department of Music staff — that presents all 16 Beethoven string quartets annually. This season marks the department’s 69th consecutive offering of all 16 of Beethoven’s string quartets.

The Miró Quartet presented the first four concerts in this year’s cycle back in November.

The annual presentation of the cycle was established at UB during the 1950s by the estate of Frederick and Alice Slee.