Since its inception in 1996, the Cypress String Quartet -- Cecily Ward & Tom Stone, violins; Ethan Filner, viola; Jennifer Kloetzel, cello -- has performed to great acclaim worldwide. Praised by the Los Angeles Times for its "musical astuteness and virtuoso resources," the Quartet has made regular appearances on National Public Radio's "Performance Today," and has been featured in Chamber Music Magazine as a "Generation X Ensemble to Watch.
The Cypress String Quartet has recently been heard at the Kennedy Center, the Ravinia Festival, Stanford Lively Arts, the Meadowlark Music Festival and the San Luis Obispo Mozart Festival. Collaborations with renowned musicians including Geraldine Walther, Ian Hobson, Miles Hoffman, David Harding, Joan Jeanrenaud, and Awadagin Pratt consistently delight audiences everywhere.
As Quartet-in-Residence at San José State University, the Cypress String Quartet constitutes the core string faculty of the University's School of Music and Dance. This innovative residency combines the quartet's strengths in performance and education to effectively serve both the University and the greater Silicon Valley Community. The Quartet also serves as Quartet-in-Residence for the Centrum Summer Chamber Music Workshop, where they teach both young students and adult amateurs.
In the 2003-2004 season the Cypress String Quartet will join over twenty-five outreach partners throughout the Bay Area to bring its ground-breaking Call & Response Series into the schools, integrating performance, outreach and the commission of new works. The Quartet has presented educational programming in conjunction with the Philadelphia Orchestra, the San Francisco Symphony, and the Ravinia Festival in Chicago, and has served as faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Summer Music Clinic and the Las Vegas Music Festival.
The Cypress String Quartet works with many of today's leading composers, from some of the world's most accomplished composers to the next generation's rising stars. Always searching for the great composers living amongst us, the Quartet has premiered or commissioned over 15 new works since 1999. Typically these new works are integrated into the Quartet's standard repertoire, taking their place alongside more familiar masterpieces on high-profile concerts across the country. The Cypress String Quartet is working to create a living record of these worthy composers' music through the regular recording and commercial release of many of these new works.
The Cypress String Quartet has participated in public seminars with Isaac Stern in San Francisco, the Amadeus Quartet in London and the Juilliard Quartet in New York. The Quartet has been in residence at the Banff Centre for the Arts in Canada, and has held fellowships at the Aspen Music Festival Center for Advanced Quartet Studies and at the Summit Institute for Arts and Humanities. The ensemble has worked closely with cellist Bonnie Hampton, and with members of the Cleveland, Orion, Emerson, Mendelssohn, and Muir Quartets.
The Cypress String Quartet resides in San Francisco, where they honor the rich tradition of chamber music by embodying the idealism, integrity and dedication from which the art form was born.
Ethan Filner - viola
A native of the San Francisco Bay Area, Ethan Filner joined the Cypress String Quartet in 2001. Mr. Filner attended Indiana University, the Guildhall School of Music & Drama in London, England and the New England Conservatory. He has participated in the International Musicians Seminar-Prussia Cove (Cornwall, England) and the Aspen Music Festival. He has performed with Miriam Fried, James Campbell and with Sir Colin Davis at the 2000 BBC Proms in Royal Albert Hall. In 1998, Mr. Filner performed a series of chamber concerts in Helsinki, Finland with fellow Guildhall students and faculty as guests of the British Embassy. He has performed as a member of the Kuttner Quartet, the Etive Ensemble, and the Sigma String Quartet. Mr. Filner's primary teachers included James Dunham, Roger Chase, Tasso Adamopoulos and Atar Arad.
Cecily Ward - violin
Cecily Ward began studying music in Salt Lake City, Utah at the age of four. She took lessons in violin, piano and composition and her teachers included members of the Utah Symphony and the University of Utah music faculty. At thirteen, she attended the Interlochen Arts Academy in Interlochen, Michigan where she was concertmaster of the orchestra. Ms. Ward went on to study the violin with Donald Weilerstein at the Eastman School of Music and at the Cleveland Institute of Music, and chamber music at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. She has participated in the Norfolk, Banff and Taos Chamber Music festivals and was an Aspen Festival Fellow. Ms. Ward has recorded Vivaldi's 'Summer' with the chamber orchestra Stratos on the Warner Bros. label.
Tom Stone - violin
Tom Stone was born in Chicago where he studied music with Hilel Kagan. Mr. Stone pursued his musical studies by attending the Eastman School of Music in Rochester and the Cleveland Institue of Music. His major teachers have included Donald Weilerstein, Zvi Zeitlin, Gyorgy Sebok, Bonnie Hampton and Merry Peckham. Mr. Stone has performed with many distinguished artists including Awadagin Pratt, Leon Fleisher, Bonnie Hampton, Paul Hersh, Ian Swensen, and Donald Weilerstein.
Jennifer Kloetzel - cello
A graduate of The Juilliard School and a Fulbright Grant winner, cellist Jennifer Kloetzel has concertized extensively in the United States, Europe and Asia. She has appeared as guest artist with The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and has collaborated with David Golub, Wu Han, Heiichiro Ohyama, Gary Hoffman and Paul Neubauer. After she performed with pianist Andre Previn at the La Jolla Chamber Music Festival in August 1992, Ms. Kloetzel was invited to appear as one of his select "Rising Stars" at the 1993 and 1994 Caramoor Festivals in New York.
Ms. Kloetzel is winner of The Juilliard School's top award, the Peter Mennin Prize for Outstanding Leadership and Achievement in Music, and a Presser Music Award, as well as a Fulbright Grant to England. She has appeared at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, the Sarasota and Aspen Music Festivals, the Prague Mozart Academy, and performed as cellist of the Cassatt Quartet during the 1995-96 season. Her teachers include Aldo Parisot, William Pleeth, Harvey Shapiro, Stephen Kates and Paula Virizlay.
Ms. Kloetzel teaches cello and chamber music at San Jose State University, and resides in San Francisco. She is a founding member of the Cypress String Quartet.
