Marian Anderson String Quartet to perform at St. Peter’s May 5

The Marian Anderson String Quartet, the first African American ensemble to win an international classical music competition, will present a program on the theme of enslavement in a special appearance at 7:30 p.m., Friday, May 5, at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, Lewes. 

Church doors will open 30 minutes before the performance.

The event marks the conclusion of this season’s St. Cecilia Music Guild-sponsored series that has celebrated the expertise of women in various forms of music performance.

The appearance in Lewes of this critically acclaimed all-female ensemble from Texas is sandwiched between its performances at the California Center for the Arts two days earlier and the Georgetown Concert Series Sunday, May 7, in Washington, D.C.

“Their rich program will present works reflecting on the theme of enslavement, beginning with ‘At the Purchaser’s Option with Variations,’ composed by Rhiannon Giddens,” said T.J. Thomas, St. Peter’s minister of music. Giddens, a composer, songwriter, singer and sometime actor, is a MacArthur Genius Grant recipient and a Grammy Award winner.

The program continues with a suite composed by University of Tennessee music professor Jonathan McNair that tells the story of the Underground Railroad which, according to some estimates, helped guide 100,000 enslaved people to freedom between 1810 and 1850.

The quartet has also selected pieces to honor its illustrious namesake, contralto Marian Anderson. In 1991, to celebrate its achievement as winner of the International Cleveland Quartet Competition, the quartet received permission from Anderson to use her name as its new one.

The program will conclude with a performance of Czech composer Antonín Dvorak’s beloved “American Quartet,” a specifically African American-inspired piece in which Dvorak focused on the music and experience of Black Americans.

Throughout the years, the Marian Anderson String Quartet’s artistic endeavors have brought them to New York’s Alice Tully Hall and the Chamber Music Society at Lincoln Center, to the Library of Congress, and to Washington D.C.’s Kennedy Center as part of the 52nd presidential inaugural celebration.

Driven by the members’ belief in the power of education, the quartet has performed in hundreds of churches, libraries, museums, soup kitchens and prisons, and the musicians have been on the faculty of numerous U.S. universities.

St. Peter’s is located at the corner of Second and Market streets in downtown Lewes. Now concluding its seventh season, the St. Cecilia Music Guild offers concerts free of charge to residents of eastern Sussex County. Freewill offerings will be warmly appreciated.