The 2015–16 Viterbo One-of-a-Kind Chamber Music Series opens with Keyed In – Piano Quintet featuring the Artaria String Quartet and pianist Mary Ellen Haupert at 3 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 27 in the Fine Arts Center Recital Hall.

The program will feature Béla Bartók’s String Quartet No. 2, Op. 17 and Edward Elgar’s Piano Quintet in A Minor, Op. 84. In its 2015–16 season, the Artaria String Quartet deals with the lasting effects of war with a program entitled “Music in the Shadow of War.”

Both the Bartók String Quartet No. 2 and the Elgar Piano Quintet were written during World War I and deeply portray the devastation of the so-called “Great War,” which saw the death of nine million military members and seven million civilians, a tragedy that can hardly be expressed in words. Through the performance of these pieces, the Artaria String Quartet finds a way of expressing the inexpressible.

The 2015–16 One-of-a-Kind Chamber Music Series features the piano in quintet, duet, duo, and solo piano performance modalities with Mary Ellen Haupert, Timothy Schorr, alumnus Christopher Narloch, and new faculty member Mark Tollefsen performing. Mary Ellen Haupert, artistic director for the series, chose “a year of the piano” to highlight the quality of the piano performance program at Viterbo.

The second concert of the series will be Sunday, Nov. 15 at 3 p.m. with Keyed In – Piano Duet featuring performances by long-time collaborators Haupert and Timothy Schorr, who currently serves as Viterbo’s dean of the College of Arts and Letters. Wisconsin Public Radio is the media sponsor for the performance.

Tickets are available at the box office. For more information or to purchase tickets, contact the Viterbo box office at 608-796-3100 or visit www.viterbo.edu/tickets.