On February 8, 2000 I attended a concert presented by the Festival Chamber Music Society. The performers were a string quartet and a French horn. Eriko Sato is a violinist who has won the Tibor Varga International competition and has appeared as a soloist with the Louisville and Tokyo Imperial orchestras. Laurie Smukler is also a violinist. She is a graduate of Juliard where she studied with Ivan Galamian. She was also a founding member of the Mendelssohn String Quartet. Ruth Sommers was the director and the cellist. She too is graduate of Julliard and studied with Leonard Rose and Harvey Shapiro. Steven Taylor play the oboe. He is a member of the Chamber music Society of Lincoln Center and Speculum Musicae. Ira Weller plays the Oboe. He is also a founder of the Mendessohn String Quartet. He is a member of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and has toured with them throughout the world.

             The first piece we heard was by Joseph Haydn. It was String Quartet in C , Op 76, No 3 "Emporer". He was born in Rohrau, Austria. Composers like Mozart and Beethoven were influenced by his style. Classical chamber music is meant to be listened to in a small setting. So I found the concert hall to be inappropriate. But it served the purpose. The beginning of the piece was allegretto. But after a few minutes, it became adagio, then it became allegro once again. The pitch was relatively high. Some notes were played in a staccato form. This added variation to this piece. But most of them were played legato (which provided the unity) At the end of the piece, I detected a cadence but I wasn"t sure if it was a mistake or a finale. I enjoyed this piece a lot. It resembles dinner music. There was no contrast that was obvious to me. Although I had never heard it prior to this concert, I would probably purchase it and play it during dinner. On Thursday April 13th, I went to the 2000 Spring Concert, which was held on The Lincoln Center Campus of Fordham University in the St.