Ivalas Quartet & Piano Fellows I
Vail Interfaith Chapel Ivalas Quartet & 2025 Bravo! Vail Piano Fellows, Evren Ozel & Ying LiArtist Insights
Who doesn’t love an all-French program? Two solo piano works alongside Fauré’s magnificent piano quartet highlight the many facets of French music at the turn of the 20th century.
Ravel’s Gaspard de la nuit, a masterpiece of color, character, and sheer virtuosity, reflects the harmonic influence of Fauré’s later works, despite coming from a composer of a different generation. It is both an emotionally profound piece and a dazzling showpiece. After such intensity, The Swan provides a moment of calm. Unlike Ravel and Fauré, Saint-Saëns remained a classicist, firmly rooted in Romanticism. This beloved work—with apologies to all the cellists—finds new charm in Leopold Godowsky’s solo piano arrangement, a quirky, “dessert-like” addition to the program. —Evren Ozel
This event is free but requires a ticket reservation.
Featured Artists
Evren Ozel
Ying Li
Evren Ozel
Piano
American pianist Evren Ozel has established himself as a musician of “refined restraint” (Third Coast Review), combining fluent virtuosity with probing, thoughtful interpretations. Having performed extensively in the United States and abroad, Evren is the recipient of a 2023 Avery Fisher Career Grant, 2022 Salon de Virtuosi Career Grant, and is currently represented by Concert Artists Guild as an Ambassador Prize Winner of their 2021 Victor Elmaleh Competition.
Since his debut with the Minnesota Orchestra at age 11, Ozel has been a featured soloist with the Cleveland Orchestra, Jacksonville Symphony, and The Orchestra Now at Bard College, with conductors Jahja Ling, Courtney Lewis, and Leon Botstein. In March of 2025, his first album of Mozart Concertos with the ORF Radio Symphony of Vienna and conductor Howard Griffiths will be released on Alpha Classics.
Ozel’s 2024-25 season highlights include solo recitals for La Jolla Music Society, Capital Region Classical, and Cal Performances. Previously, he has performed recitals for Harvard Musical Association, Schubert Club, Chopin Society of Minnesota, and The Gilmore. Carrying a vast and varied recital repertoire, his 2023-24 season included a program ranging from Bach and Rameau to Ligeti, as well as a program of Beethoven’s last three Piano Sonatas.
An esteemed chamber musician, Ozel performs alongside artists like David Finckel and Wu Han, Stella Chen, Zlatomir Fung, Paul Huang, and Peter Wiley. He spent four summers at the Marlboro Festival and is currently a 2024-27 Bowers Program Artist for the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. His 2024-25 season includes a tour with Musicians from Marlboro, as well as CMS concerts at Alice Tully Hall.
Ozel resides in Boston, where he is currently a candidate in New England Conservatory’s prestigious and highly exclusive Artist Diploma program, under the tutelage of Wha Kyung Byun. Other important mentors include Jonathan Biss, Imogen Cooper, Richard Goode, Andras Schiff, and Mitsuko Uchida.
Ying Li
Piano
Chinese pianist Ying Li is the first prize winner of the 2021 YCA Susan Wadsworth International Auditions, as well as recipient of The Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival Prize and the Tri-I Noon Recitals Prize. She has received top awards in numerous national and international competitions including the inaugural Antonio Mormone International Prize, Sarasota Artist Series Piano Competition, Brevard Music Festival, International Liszt Piano Competition for Young Pianists, and was a finalist at Concours musical international de Montréal.
Ying has performed with many leading orchestras such as The Philadelphia Orchestra, New Jersey Symphony, Buffalo Philharmonic, Brevard Music Festival Orchestra, L’Accademia Orchestra del La Scala, NWD-Philharmoniker, and the Stuttgart Philharmonic with conductors such as Lina Gonzalez-Granados, Xian Zhang, Dan Ettinger, Eric Jacobsen, and Jonathon Heyward.
During the 2024-25 season, Ying will make appearances with the Minnesota Orchestra, Kansas City Symphony, Orlando Philharmonic, Eugene Symphony, Aiken Symphony, and the Salisbury Symphony, among others.
Ying made her New York City recital debut at Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall in the Peter Marino Concert and her Washington, D.C. debut at The Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater, with additional US recitals at Pepperdine University in Malibu, Evergreen Museum & Library in Baltimore, Sunday Musicale in New Jersey, Southeastern Piano Festival, and the Honest Brook Music Festival. Recent recitals engagements include Sala Verdi in Milan, Hammerklavier International Piano Festival in Barcelona, Musica Insieme Bologna, Teatro Alighieri in Ravenna, Fazioli Pianoforti in Sacile, and the C. Bechstein Series at the Konzerthaus in Berlin. Ying was also featured on WQXR's "Eine-kleine Birthday-musik," a free, all-Mozart live streamed concert from The Greene Space in New York City, to celebrate Mozart's 266th birthday.
As an avid chamber musician, Ying has appeared at prestigious festivals around the world including the Verbier Festival Academy, ClassicheFORME International Chamber Music Festival in Lecce, Ravinia’s Steans Institute, La Jolla Music Society, Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, the Artists Series Concerts in Sarasota, and the Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival.
Ying began piano lessons at age five in China and was a student at the Elementary School division of the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, then she moved to Philadelphia in 2012, at age 14, to study at the Curtis Institute of Music with Jonathan Biss and Seymour Lipkin. After receiving the Bachelor of Music at Curtis Institute in 2019, she received her Master of Music at The Juilliard School in New York with Robert McDonald and continues her studies with McDonald at The Juilliard School’s Artist Diploma Program.
Meet The Ivalas Quartet
Reuben Kebede
Tiani Butts
Marcus Stevenson
Pedro Sánchez
Reuben Kebede
Violin
Click here to read Reuben Kebede's biography.
Tiani Butts
Violin
Click here to read Tiani Butts's biography.
Marcus Stevenson
Viola
Click here to read Marcus Stevenson's biography.
Pedro Sánchez
Cello
Click here to read Pedro Sánchez's biography.
Program Highlights
Ying Li, piano
(Bravo! Vail 2025 Piano Fellow)
Evren Ozel, piano
(Bravo! Vail 2025 Piano Fellow)
Ivalas Quartet
(Bravo! Vail 2025 Chamber Musicians in Residence)
Reuben Kebede, violin
Tiani Butts, violin
Marcus Stevenson, viola
Pedro Sánchez, cello
RAVEL Gaspard de la nuit
SAINT-SAËNS, arr. Godowsky Le cygne
FAURÉ Piano Quartet in C minor, Op. 15
All artists, programs, and pricing subject to change.
The Ivalas Quartet's Story
Hailed by The Strad for playing with “tremendous heart and beauty,” the Ivalas Quartet has been changing the face of classical music since its inception in 2017 with a mission to enrich the classical music world by spotlighting past and present BIPOC composers alongside the standard repertory. Among the many composers whose works they have championed are Eleanor Alberga, Gabriela Lena Frank, Osvaldo Golijov, Jessie Montgomery, Angélica Negrón, Iván Enrique Rodríguez, Carlos Simon, Alvin Singleton, and George Walker. They premiered Derrick Skye’s Deliverance through a commission from Caramoor in 2024.
The Ivalas Quartet served as the Graduate Resident String Quartet at The Juilliard School from 2022 to 2024, where they studied with the Juilliard String Quartet. They were previously in residence at the University of Colorado-Boulder under the mentorship of the Takács Quartet.
Performing on concert series throughout the United States, the quartet has been presented by the Austin Chamber Music Center, Newport Classical, Schneider Concerts, the Chautauqua Institution, the Skaneateles Festival, Friends of Chamber Music Denver, and CU Presents, where they collaborated with the Takács Quartet in 2020 and 2022. In May of 2023 and 2024, they presented full programs at Carnegie Hall, titled “First Light” and “Fate and Yearning.” Recently, the quartet has enjoyed performing on Lincoln Center’s Summer for the City, and in collaboration with New Latin Wave, the FUTUROS - New Ideas in Composition series. The Quartet is also thrilled to be the 2024-25 Curator/Performing Ensemble of the Schneider Concerts at The New School in New York City.
The Ivalas Quartet won a Salon de Virtuosi Career Grant in 2023 and also had the great honor of serving as the 2022-23 Ernst Stiefel String Quartet-in-Residence at Caramoor. In 2022, Ivalas won the grand prize at the Coltman Chamber Music Competition, as well as first prize at the 2019 WDAV Young Chamber Musicians Competition. In 2021, they created the first recording of Carlos Simon’s Warmth from Other Suns for string quartet under Lara Downes’ digital label Rising Sun Music.
The members of the Ivalas Quartet – violinists Reuben Kebede and Tiani Butts, violist Marcus Stevenson, and cellist Pedro Sánchez – have a shared dedication to their roles as educators. The quartet has nurtured students from the early stages of their musical journey to the collegiate level, with coaching experience including residencies at the University of Michigan’s Center Stage Strings program, the University of Northern Iowa, the University of Central Arkansas, Madeline Island Chamber Music, and the MacPhail Center for Music. In New York City, they have coached student groups at The Juilliard School in both the preparatory and undergraduate divisions. The Quartet has worked with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center through the Society’s Chamber Music Beginnings since 2022.
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