Matinee Family Concert
Matinee Family Concert – Free!
Mill City String Quartet
Saturday, November 14 – 2:00 p.m.
St. Cloud Public Library, 1300 West St. Germain Street, St. Cloud
BOUNDLESS – Music Across Borders
This program celebrates the ways music transcends borders, reminding us that art has the power to connect people across cultures, histories, and generations. Their program will include works by Caroline Shaw, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Annie Gosfield, Philip Glass, and Aleksandra Vrebalov.
Sponsors: St. Cloud Public Library; Mary Lou and Jerry Lenz
Caroline Shaw — Entr’acte
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor — Fantasie-Stücke
Annie Gosfield — The Blue Horse Walks on the Horizon
Philip Glass — Quartet Satz
Aleksandra Vrebalov — Pannonia Boundless
What does it mean to belong to a place—or to carry a place within you?
Boundless explores music that crosses borders of geography, culture, history, and imagination. Caroline Shaw’s Entr’acte opens the program by playfully reimagining the traditions of the string quartet, leading us somewhere both familiar and unexpected. Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Fantasie-Stücke follows with lyrical warmth and expressive depth, reflecting the rich musical voice of a composer whose work bridges cultural traditions.
The journey then takes a more contemporary turn with Annie Gosfield’s The Blue Horse Walks on the Horizon, a work that evokes shifting landscapes and the possibilities of music beyond conventional boundaries. Philip Glass’s Quartet Satz crosses another kind of border, bringing the string quartet into the meditative world of repetition and pulse. Glass challenges traditional ideas of classical development, finding movement and transformation within patterns that unfold gradually over time.
The program culminates in Aleksandra Vrebalov’s Pannonia Boundless, inspired by the shared folk traditions of Central and Eastern Europe. Here, political boundaries give way to the deeper cultural connections carried through music, memory, and tradition.
Together, these works invite us to consider the borders we inherit, the cultures we carry, and the ways music can move freely across them. Boundless celebrates the extraordinary ability of music to connect people across geography, history, musical traditions, and generations.
Established in 2007, Mill City String Quartet (MCSQ) is an internationally prize-winning chamber ensemble based in the Twin Cities of Minnesota, USA. MCSQ recently won First Prize in the Fanny Mendelssohn International Competition, Professional Chamber Music category (2024), First Prize and Second Prize in the Charleston International Music Competition (Classical Music Competition 2025 and Winter Competition 2024) and First Prize in the International Schubert Competition Vienna, Professional Chamber Music category (2025). This vivacious string quartet cultivates transformative concerts that promote underrepresented composers and celebrate the classical music genre. Mill City String Quartet has been chosen six times as Minnesota Public Radio Class Notes artists, allowing them to reach thousands of school children through performances and master classes. Recent opportunities for the quartet include performing the National Anthem for the Minnesota Twins at Target Field, full concert performances in Iowa, Florida, and Oregon as well as being educational artists-in-residence with The Schubert Club and Oregon’s Britt Festival. MCSQ firmly believes in offering outreach concerts to their community and has performed at MCF-Shakopee, Minnesota’s all-women’s correctional facility as well as The Glenn, a retirement community in Minnetonka. The quartet is a frequent guest on regional chamber music series, including Hamline Music and Art Series, Schubert Club Courtroom Concerts, Saint Paul Conservatory of Music’s Lunchtime Series, St. Cloud Chamber Music Society, Westminster Presbyterian Performing Arts Series, Waseca Arts Center Series, Thursday Musical, Rochester Music Guild, Sioux City Chamber Music, Waverly Chamber Music Series, and Music on the Hill in Mankato. Current MCSQ members are Huldah Niles (Artistic Director and Violin), Erika Hoogeveen (Violin), Coca Bochonko (Viola), and Rebeccah Parker Downs (Cello). millcityquartet.com