The Chamber Music Concerts Series at Southern Oregon University has lined up an unusual concert for next week. Thomas Gallant, one of the world's few virtuoso solo and chamber music performers on the oboe, will perform with Cuarteto Casals.

The concert will begin at 8 p.m. Saturday, March 3, at the SOU Music Recital Hall, 1250 Siskiyou Blvd., Ashland.

The program includes Josef Fiala's Quartet No. 2 for Oboe and Strings; Franz Joseph Haydn's String Quartet in C Major; Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Quartet in F Major for Oboe and Strings; and Franz Schubert's String Quartet in G Major.

The Cuarteto Casals was founded in Madrid in 1997. The young Spanish quartet is made up of violinists Abel Tomàs Realp and Vera Martínez Mehner, violist Jonathan Brown, and cellist Arnau Tomàs Realp. The quartet has won top prizes at many international competitions, including First Prize at the 2000 London International String Quartet Competition and First Prize at the Johannes Brahms International String Quartet Competition in Hamburg (2002).

In September 2000, the ensemble was honored with the Catalonian Music Critics Prize. Its members have performed at the Wigmore Hall in London, Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), Lincoln Center (New York), Beethovenhaus (Bonn), Philharmonie (Berlin), Library of Congress (Washington), Konzerthaus (Wien, Austria), Weill Recital Hall (New York), Philharmonie (Cologne) and tours throughout Europe, the United States, South America and Japan. The Cuarteto Casals is currently quartet in residence at conservatories in Barcelona and Zaragoza, Spain.

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Gallant is a First Prize Winner of the Concert Artists Guild International New York Competition. His performances have taken him to New York's Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and Weill Recital Hall; to the Salle Pleyel in Paris and Vienna Konzerthaus; and to the Ravinia and Spoleto festivals.

Gallant has collaborated with the Kronos, Lark and Colorado string quartets, harpsichordist Kenneth Cooper, and flutists Jean-Pierre Rampal and Paula Robison, among others. His performances have been broadcast on the BBC, the Voice of America and National Public Radio.

In addition to their concert performance, Gallant and Cuarteto Casals will present an educational outreach program for students at 2 p.m. Friday, March 2, at St. Mary's School in Medford.

Tickets to the March 3 concert are $26/$30, and $5 for students.

Chamber Music Concerts is supported in part by a grant from the Oregon Arts Commission and the National Endowment for the Arts. For more information about CMC, see www.sou.edu/cmc or call 552-6154.