MENOMINEE, MICH. – River Cities Concert Association will present ArcoStrum on Thursday, Oct. 22, at Blesch Auditorium — a barrier-free venue — at the Menominee Elementary School in Menominee, Mich., at 7 p.m. Central Time.
This concert is sponsored by Broadway Real Estate and Johnson & Wilson Law S.C. — Nathaniel A. Johnson Esq. and Richard A. Kuenzi Esq.
On stage, they are ArcoStrum — a dynamic duo playing violin, classical guitar, electric guitar and traditional Chinese instruments. Offstage, they are best friends who share a love for an inclusive and creative music-making process.
Their friendship began at The Juilliard School, where they were classmates and roommates, forming a partnership built on trust, curiosity and a shared joy in making music.
Symbolizing the pair’s unique musical identity, the name ArcoStrum fuses “arco,” a bowing technique for the violin, and “strum,” the motion used to create sound on a guitar.
Violinist Strauss Shi is a three-time international competition prize winner and guitarist TY Zhang is the only Chinese classical guitarist to win the Guitar Foundation of America International Concert Artist Competition. In 2023 they were the first violin-guitar duo ever to receive the Concert Artists Guild’s Victor Elmaleh Competition in CAG’s more than seventy-year history.
ArcoStrum is committed to pushing boundaries and redefining the 21st-century violin-guitar art form, presenting a new chamber music that is mixed-genre, multi-cultural and cross-era, merging Eastern and Western cultures. ArcoStrum seamlessly combines the evocative sounds of traditional Chinese instruments like the erhu — a two-string fiddle — and dizi — a bamboo flute — with the virtuosity of classical violin, guitar and electric guitar.
ArcoStrum’s innovative program offers a musical journey that transcends boundaries, celebrating the evolution of music across cultures and generations. Following their performance in San Francisco, Richard Patterson of the Omni Foundation for the Performing Arts said it “was at times moving, at times brilliant and at times thrilling, but always compelling!”
Program highlights for ArcoStrum’s performance on Oct. 22 include music from Antonio Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons,” Astor Piazzolla’s “Nightclub 1960” from “The History of Tango,” Zhihui Li’s “Ink Orchid Pavilion,” Haihuai Huang’s “Horse Racing,” John Williams’s theme from “Schindler’s List” and the Katona Twins’ ”Michael Jackson Meets Scarlatti.”
With a belief in the power of music to spark imagination and a deep commitment to educational and community engagement, the pair will also be performing a youth concert at an area school.
Single tickets will be available at the door. Adult tickets are $30 and student tickets are $8, which may be paid by cash or check only. For more information, please contact Barb Akins by calling (906) 863-7387 or visit www.rcconcerts.com.
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