Founded in 1997, the Fry Street Quartet took their name from the little street in Chicago where they were in residence at the time. They were mentored early on by the late Isaac Stern, who invited them to chamber music workshops at the Jerusalem Music Center and Carnegie Hall, and chose them to perform their Carnegie Hall debut in his series at Weill Recital Hall in November 2001.
In July 2002 the quartet was sponsored by Carnegie Hall and the U.S. Department of State on a concert tour of the Balkan States, as ambassadors of the Carnegie Fellows Program. They toured with composer J. Mark Scearce`s first quartet, "Y2K," which was written for them with a grant from Meet the Composer.
As testimony to the Fry Street`s fast ascent in the string quartet world, the group was awarded first prize at the 2000 Chamber Music Yellow Springs Competition and the 2000 Millennium Grand Prize at the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. In addition, the quartet was twice the recipient of a fellowship to the Aspen Music Festival`s Center for Advanced Quartet Studies.
The Fry Street Quartet keeps a busy national touring schedule with concerts across the country. The coming season includes concerts in Chicago`s Jewel Box Series and a tribute concert at Sweet Briar College for Isaac Stern on the invitation of Linda Reynolds Stern. They have collaborated with some of the foremost musicians of our time, including members of the Cleveland, Mendelssohn and Ying Quartets. Their debut recording of works by Janacek and Beethoven was issued in December 2001.
In May of 2002, the Fry Street Quartet completed their three-year tenure in Chamber Music America`s "Rural Residencies" program at Hickory, North Carolina, where they offered a sold-out chamber music series and played over 100 outreach concerts per year. In September 2002 they became the Faculty String Quartet in Residence at Utah State University.
Jessica Guideri performs extensively as soloist, chamber, and orchestral musician. Since making her Carnegie Hall solo debut at age seventeen with the New York Youth Symphony, she has performed with such orchestras as the Queens and Westchester Symphonies, and has been invited several times to appear as soloist with the Symphony Orchestra of Campinas in Brazil. Ms. Guideri has served as concertmaster for several orchestras including the Juilliard Orchestra, The New York Youth Symphony, The Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival Orchestra in Germany, The Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, and is currently a member of the Long Island Philharmonic and the Prometheus Chamber Orchestra. As a chamber musician, Ms. Guideri has participated in Taos, Norfolk, Sarasota, and Aspen Music Festivals working with members of the Takacs, Tokyo, Juilliard, Vermeer, and Orion String Quartets. A native of New York, Ms. Guideri resides in Manhattan and is a faculty member of the Center of Preparatory Studies in Music at Queens College and Suzuki on the Island in Manhasset. She received her B.M. and M.M. in violin performance from the Juilliard School where her teachers included Dorothy Delay, Masao Kawasaki, and Joel Smirnoff.
Rebecca McFaul earned her Bachelor of Music degree at the Oberlin Conservatory, where she studied with Marilyn McDonald, and her Master`s of Music degree at Northwestern University, where she studied with Gerardo Ribeiro. At Northwestern, she was awarded a Civic Orchestra of Chicago Graduate Fellowship while serving as principal second violin. As a founding member of the Fry Street Quartet, she has traveled across the country and abroad to study with artists such as Isaac Stern, Alexander Schneider, Donald Weilerstein, Leon Fleisher, Wu Han, and members of several eminent string quartets. She has also performed numerous concerti and has played in many festivals worldwide, including the Spoleto Festival in Italy, where she was concertmaster.
Russell Fallstad began violin lessons when he was five; by the age of ten he was studying the string quartet literature, and for eight years he played both viola and violin with the MacPhail Quartetino. He received both his Bachelor and Master`s degrees in music from Northwestern University, where he was a student of Gerardo Ribeiro, and was awarded a Civic Orchestra of Chicago Graduate Fellowship. While at Northwestern, he and Rebecca McFaul co-founded the Fry Street Quartet. Mr. Fallstad has played violin and viola in many concert series with various chamber groups and has appeared as soloist with several orchestras. A dedicated teacher, Mr. Fallstad taught at Chicago`s most prestigious music schools, including Northwestern University, DePaul University, The Music Center of the North Shore, and the Western Springs School of Talent Education.
Anne Francis received her Bachelor of Music degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music, where she studied with Richard Aaron and Alan Harris. Previous teachers have included Bonnie Hampton and Bruce Uchimura. She has been a prize winner in the Carmel National Chamber Music Competition, the Darius Milhaud Performance Prize Competition, and the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. She has appeared as guest artist with the Kalamazoo, Michigan, Bach Festival and the Fontana Summer Music Festival and performed as soloist with the orchestras in Michigan and the CIM. As a member of the Cambiata String Quartet, she was twice a fellow at the Center for Advanced Quartet studies at the Aspen Music Festival and participated in the Isaac Stern Chamber Music Workshop at Carnegie Hall. In addition to recital appearances in California, Colorado, and New York, she has appeared on chamber music series in Minnesota, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Virginia as a member of the quartet. Her activities with the group have also included two week-long educational residencies involving master classes, outreach programs, and performances of the Mendelssohn Octet in collaboration with the Cavani Quartet. Ms. Francis serves as assistant to Paul Katz at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University.
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