The Haven String Quartet has been welcomed as an ensemble-in-residence at Southern Connecticut State University.
“The School of Arts and Sciences, in an effort to provide access to a form of music making that is not currently represented on campus, has extended to Music Haven and its official resident ensemble, the Haven String Quartet, the opportunity to be in residence at Southern” the university’s website indicates.
The residency is an opportunity for the quartet “to kind of share our model at the university level,” Music Haven Executive Director Tina Lee Hadari said.
The quartet is the permanent resident ensemble of Music Haven, a local nonprofit organization that, according to its website, “provides world-class performances and free after school education programs that build long-term relationships between professional musicians, children, and families in four high-poverty Empowerment Zone neighborhoods of New Haven. … All after-school programs, including string instruments, are completely tuition-free and are open to youth who reside or attend school in the Dixwell, Hill, Dwight, or Newhallville neighborhoods of New Haven.”
“Sharing and performing music in communities that don’t typically have access,” Hadari said, is Music Haven’s way of addressing social issues through art.
And while string-quartet residencies at universities are fairly common, Hadari said, “quartet residencies that are sharing what we’re doing is pretty rare.”
Hadari established the organization in 2006. The musicians of the Haven String Quartet are violinists Hadari and Yaira Matyakubova, violist Colin Benn, and cellist Matt Beckmann.
According to news on Southern Connecticut State University’s website, “the Haven String Quartet will integrate into campus life in a number of capacities: via concerts, workshops and class participation. In addition, the group will have the opportunity to offer its high school outreach program on the Southern campus once the program is initiated. The Southern community can expect concerts and learning opportunities to take place on campus for the next few years.”