Celebrating 25 years of Melharmony featuring Maestro Chitravina N Ravikiran, the creator of Melharmony with Artists from the Midwest including the KAIA Quartet. From the tango of the Rio de la Plata to the string quartets of Silvestre Revueltas, the KAIA String Quartet is an ensemble devoted to promoting the rich & colorful music of Latin America. Active performers in both the US & abroad, highlights of the most recent season include a collaboration with Jazz singer Paul Marinaro and performances at Chicago area venues including the Studebaker Theatre, the Epiphany Center for the Arts, the Morton Arboretum, the Mozart Immersive Experience, and the Kenilworth Assembly Hall. The quartet’s most recent tour of Uruguay & Argentina included a performance at Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. The Quartet plays an active role in Chicago’s music scene and has performed at the Chicago Latino Music Festival, the Ear Taxi Festival, & Chamber Music on the Fox. Celebrated by Downbeat magazine for its ability to “beautifully blur the lines between jazz, classical, Latin & world music” KAIA’s album collaboration with friend of the proGram Fareed Haque was chosen by Chicago Tribune’s Howard Reich as one of the top 10 classical recordings of 2018. Their album, Sureño, explores the music and relationship of Argentinian composers Astor Piazzolla & José Bragato. The latest recording project released in 2020 includes a collaboration with jazz pianist Ryan Cohan in his work Originations. KAIA together with Cohan and his chamber ensemble were featured performing this piece at 2019 Chicago’s Jazz Fest main stage. KAIA is deeply devoted to music education. They are teaching artists for Ravinia’s Reach*Teach*Play program and for Classical Music Chicago’s Young Peoples’ Concerts program. KAIA founded DePaul University’s Community Music Division chamber program where they inspire the next generation of performers. During the 2023-24 season, the KAIA String Quartet was invited to teach and perform at Michigan State University & Carthage College as artists-in-residence. In the summer of 2023, KAIA was on the New England Music Camp’s Chamber Music Intensive faculty as the resident quartet and returned in the summer of 2024.
I had the chance to catch up with Victoria Moreira, founding member & 1st violin of KAIA ahead of next week’s festivities. We got into just what will be going down as they support Maestro Ravikiran’s vision and direction (check out my conversation with Maestro Ravikiran ahead of last year’s Melharmony Festival), including working as a quartet with a local Madison bassist for this collaboration. They will be doing a set as themselves (including one substitute we learn about from the normal quartet) they will feature some recognizable artists to many ears that may feel not as trained in the classical scene. I could easily hear the excitement in Victoria’s voice when we spoke about this concert. We get a little into the fact that KAIA is (usually) an all women group and how today this idea is more celebrated as we still do wish this was not something that always has to be brought up. I also was curious about music or artists she’d listen to if we were just hanging out toGether and without surprise, we easily found a common ground and that we agreed on the fact that ‘A good song, is a good song’.
