Afiara Quartet returns to SF State to Premiere Work by Professor Festinger

EXAMINER.COM -- Last night in the McKenna Theatre of San Francisco State University, the members of the Afiara Quartet returned to conclude the 2014 – 15 season of the Morrison Artists Series, created as part of the May Treat Morrison Chamber Music Center. This visit clearly meant a lot to the group. As fellowship quartet-in-residence for the 2005 – 06 term, its very existence as a quartet owed much to the coaching of the resident quartet at SF State, the Alexander String Quartet. As a gesture of thanks, the Afiara performed the third string quartet by Richard Festinger, artistic director of the Morrison Artists Series, composed with a commission from the Serge Koussevitzky Foundation at the Library of Congress. Beyond establishing a frame of reference through past repertoire, Afiara brought a sense of engagement to its performance that not only honored the individuality of this new composition but reinforced it with a rhetorical motivation that always kept things moving forward.