Spokane String Quartet closes season with Mead grad

The Spokane String Quartet closes its season Sunday with a concert featuring pianist Archie Chen.

Chen, a 1995 Mead High School graduate, began his piano studies at age 6 and was a Young Artist award winner at the 1993 Greater Spokane Music and Allied Arts Festival (now Musicfest Northwest).

He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Indiana University and is pursuing a doctorate in performance at the Royal Irish Academy of Music in Dublin, where he is assistant lecturer of piano. He and his wife also operate a private piano school.

Chen has performed across Europe, including for Pope John Paul II in Vatican Auditorium, and just finished a 12-day concert tour of China.

He will join the quartet Sunday for Robert Schumann’s Piano Quintet in E-flat major and will perform solo selections by Frederic Chopin, in observance of the 200th anniversary of the composer’s birth.

Quartet members Mateusz Wolski and Tracy Dunlop, violins; Jeannette Wee-Yang, viola; and Helen Byrne, cello, also will perform “Navarra (Danza Espagnole)” by Pablo de Sarasate.

Sunday’s concert begins at 3 p.m. at the Martin Woldson Theater at The Fox, 1001 W. Sprague Ave. General admission tickets are $18 for adults, $15 for seniors and $10 for students, through the Fox ticket office (509-624-1200) or TicketsWest outlets (800-325-SEAT, www.ticketswest.com).