By Town Crier Staff Report

The Ives String Quartet opens its 2002 Spring Series at 4 p.m., Sunday, at the First Congregational Church, 1985 Louis Road, Palo Alto.

The quartet will perform Thomas Oboe Lee’s “Seven Jazz Studies,” Haydn’s Quartet in C major Op. 20, No. 2 and Britten’s Quartet No. 3.

“Seven Jazz Studies” consists of seven parts: the first, third and last are quiet and meditative; the other sections are inspired by jazz artists Horace Silver, Bill Evans, Antonio Carlos Jobim and Paco Pastorius.

Quartet in C major, Op. 20, No. 2 is one of six quartets written between 1770 and 1772.

Quartet No. 3 was completed shortly before Britten’s death in 1976. In this work, he quotes from his own “Death in Venice,” and uses a wide range of compositional devices drawn from earlier periods and even from his contemporaries.

For tickets and more information, call 856-6662.