KidsRead / KidsWrite: The Center for Fiction’s Family Day

Saturday, 11:00 am EDT - 1:00 pm EDT April 30, 2022

The Plaza at 300 Ashland

Across the street from our home, The Center for Fiction presents an outdoor celebration of storytelling for young readers at The Plaza at 300 Ashland. The event will include a mobile book fair for young people and their caregivers along with a performance of new works from the New York Philharmonic’s Very Young Composers program by the O Kwarteto Collective from 11:30am – 12:30pm!

Family Day is part of The Center’s KidsRead / KidsWrite program, which annually serves 2,500 students from NYC Public Schools with author-led reading and writing events.

Featuring

O Kwarteto Collective

O Kwarteto Collective

O Kwarteto Collective is a string quartet made up of musicians from various cultural and musical backgrounds with homes in NYC and more recently in Madrid, Spain. The ensemble was founded by its own violinists, composers, and arrangers Ludovica Burtone and Delaney Stockli, two friends with the idea of creating a group that devotes itself to the performance of Brazilian music not traditionally written for or performed by a string quartet. This year O Kwarteto has begun expanding its own repertoire of choro, forró, and Afro-samba, to include arrangements from other Latin styles and original music composed by under-represented composers.

Since the group’s start in September 2018, O Kwarteto has had the pleasure of performing at various beautiful venues across New York City, Spain, and Italy. After successful shows at venues in NYC including The Cell theatre, and the New York Botanical Garden for the Roberto Burle-Marx Brazilian Modern exhibition, the quartet traveled through Catalunya in Spain and the northeast of Italy for a successful European summer 2019 tour.

For this special collaboration with the NY Philharmonic Very Young Composers, O Kwarteto Collective will feature Ludovica Burtone and Abby Swidler on violins, Kayla Williams on viola, and Maria Gabriela Figueroa on cello.

About VYC

Created by Jon Deak, composer and former New York Philharmonic Associate Principal Bass, the New York Philharmonic Very Young Composers Program® (VYC) provides children ages 9-15 the opportunity to transform their musical ideas into finished compositions to be performed by professional musicians. Participants hone their creations with the mentorship of Teaching Artists in workshops and rehearsals, culminating in astonishing works of art that reveal the power of children’s imaginations. The Philharmonic’s Very Young Composers is thrilled to celebrate its 25th Anniversary this season! For more information, visit nyphil.org/vyc.