This program is the result of a series of taping sessions of interviews and live performances that took place during the week-long festival "A Musical Bridge to China" that was held at the well known West Virginia resort, Coolfont, last August. Two chamber music ensembles, one from China and one from the USA participated in the festival. The group from china "Music from China" performed on traditional Chinese instruments such as the pipa, a four stringed plucked instrument and the erhu, a two stringed bowed instrument. The representative group from the United States was the Washington D.C. based Sunrise Quartet. During the festival, the Sunrise Quartet performed works by Turkish American composer Osman Kivrak as well as works by composers of the standard string quartet repertoire such as Debussy, Ravel and Mozart.

In the final concert which was videotaped by West Virginia Public Broadcasting, the groups from the two continents first performed separately and than came together for a joint performance of Chinese Folk Songs arranged by Zhou Long.

One of the major works that was performed at this final concert was a string quartet composed by the Sunrise Quartet's violist, Osman Kivrak. An adjunct faculty member and Musician in Residence at American University, Dr. Kivrak is a native of Turkey and in his compositions he incorporates folk music elements from his ancestral home. In the segment to be broadcasted next week he made use of a well known Turkish folk song "Koroglu". Koroglu was a legendary folk hero who fought feudal oppression.

What the critics say about "Koroglu":

"Without being formally programmatic, the work is extremely visual, especially with the breathtaking quiet of the third movement's misty dawn and the furious galloping of fourth movement's battling confrontations. The four movements constantly rework two opposing melodies with minimalist-style repetitions, but their compactness and intensity make the composer's inventiveness seem endless. The four players relished the bold rhythms and arresting little moments. The near-capacity audience's cheering and bravos indicated the power of Kivrak's impressive abilities."
ROY C. DICKS
The News & Observer, Raleigh, North Carolina

"At the top of the list was Osman Kivrak's "Koroglu" for string quartet. Kivrak, violist with the Sunrise Quartet, has come to composition relatively late in his career, although he has played a good number of contemporary works. And one only has to hear a couple of measures of "Koroglu," with its variations on an Anatolian folk song, to know that his wisdom and experience have been put to wonderful use. From the haunting Adagio, with its sibilant dissonances, to the chantlike melismata of the Introduction-Allegro, Kivrak has fashioned a work that speaks directly but never plainly. We must hear more of him."
MARK CARRINGTON
The Washington Post

You can reach Osman Kivrak at kivrak@yahoo.com