When the Biava String Quartet performs Tuesday night at Seton Hill University in Greensburg, the concert will have extra significance for violist Mary Persin.
"My mother took me to my first-ever violin lesson at Seton Hill University, so it's really coming full circle to where my musical studies all began," says the Greensburg native.
Persin is a founding member of the Biava Quartet, which came together at the Cleveland Institute of Music in 1998, and is one of the fastest rising chamber music groups in the business. The Biava won the prestigious Naumberg Award in 2003. The next year it began a residency at Yale University, the first quartet to be based at the Ivy League school in 15 years since the much-admired Yale Quartet disbanded.
The Biava String Quartet also began professional recording this year, making a CD for Naxos of Mozart's Piano Concerti Nos. 12 to 14 with pianist Robert Blocker, dean of the Yale's School of Music. The Biava also recorded composer Stacy Garrop's "Demons and Angels" for Cedille Records, music that commissioned for and premiered by the ensemble.
Persin was one of Western Pennsylvania's most honored musical kids when she was growing up. She was principal violist of the Pittsburgh Youth Symphony from age 11 until she graduated from Hempfield High School -- as valedictorian -- in 1998. She won several Pittsburgh Concert Society and other competitions and was a featured soloist with the Pittsburgh and Westmoreland Youth Symphonies. "My mother studied piano all her life and was the one who encouraged us to play," says Persin, of her musical family. Her brother is a cellist and her sister, who studied violin, is a scholar of Renaissance literature.
Her dad, who's an attorney, was the musical equivalent of a soccer mom, and a very busy one at that. In addition to taking the kids to local lessons, rehearsals and concerts, he drove Mary to Cleveland every week when she was in high school for lessons with Robert Vernon, principal violist of the Cleveland Orchestra.
The chemistry was immediate when the members of the Biava Quartet began playing together.
"We were all freshmen at the Cleveland Institute of Music. We knew each other but hadn't even read music together before then. We'd heard each other play solo," says Persin.
The music faculty recognized the group's exceptional promise when its members were first-term freshmen, and invited them to play at the Winter Festival and begin coaching with the Cavani Quartet.
Persin says the group really broadened and polished its repertoire at the New England Conservatory of Music, where cellist Paul Katz was its mentor.
"We were the first group picked for 'The Art of the String Quartet' training program," winning its spot after competing with young ensembles from around the world, says Persin. "We had very intensive quartet study. We didn't even play in the orchestra."
The Biava Quartet plays 50 to 60 concerts a season now, including international touring. Its Greensburg program features Felix Mendelssohn turbulent F minor Quartet, 3 Rags by American composer William Bolcom.
Antonin Dvorak's "American" String Quartet will be the finale, especially fitting for Persin's homecoming because it begins with viola introducing the main theme and other strings supporting. Persin, after all, plays the instrument Dvorak preferred to play.
