Musicians from Ravinia’s Steans Music Institute (RSMI) will become one of the first U.S. chamber ensembles to perform in Cuba at 6 p.m. Friday, March 28, at Basílica Menor del Convento de San Francisco de Asís in Havana as part of Festival de Música de Cámara. Ensemble members are selected annually from past participants in RSMI, which each year awards about 70 of the best young professionals from around the world full fellowships to study and perform with Ravinia’s headliners and top-notch educators. Violinist Miriam Fried, director of the RSMI Piano and Strings Program, will lead the ensemble that features violinist Alexi Kenney of San Francisco, CA; cellist SuJin Lee of Boston, MA; violist Matthew Lipman of Chicago, IL; and pianist Henry Kramer of Cape Elizabeth, ME. Along with David Ludwig’s Aria Fantasy, which was commissioned by Ravinia to celebrate the 25th anniversary of RSMI and was premiered at the festival last summer, the program will include Haydn’s Piano Trio in E-flat Major and Schubert’s String Quartet No. 15 in G Major.
The performance marks the first international appearance of the ensemble, which kicked off its annual spring tour on its home turf at this past Saturday in Bennett Gordon Hall.