Most families would be thrilled to have one fine musician in their midst. And a whole clan? From the Bachs and Mozarts to the von Trapp Family Singers of "The Sound of Music" and the Jackson Five, professional family ensembles have always held a certain fascination.

Tomorrow, the Honolulu Chamber Music Series will present the award-winning Ying Quartet, consisting of Timothy Ying (violin), Janet Ying (violin), Phillip Ying (viola), and David Ying (cello), all born within six years of each other.

"As far as we know," Phillip Ying has said, "we are the only all-sibling string quartet in the world."

Natives of Chicago, the Yings launched their career in 1992 with a residency in a small town in Iowa, funded by the first National Endowment for the Arts grant to support chamber music in rural America. For the next couple of years, the Yings performed throughout the community. Their successful residency generated national and international media interest.

Over the years, the Ying Quartet garnered a string of honors, including the Naumburg Chamber Music Award and a 2006 Grammy Award, and is now quartet in residence at the Eastman School of Music of the University of Rochester in New York, where all four are on the faculty.

Tomorrow's program includes the Ying Quartet's trademark "A Musical Dim Sum," described as a selection of short works by contemporary Chinese-American composers, which will likely be the most intriguing portion of the concert.

At past concerts, "Dim Sum" has included works by composers such as Chen Yi, Tan Dun and Zhou Long, whose larger works have been performed in recent years by the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra. The "Dim Sum" works, some composed for the Yings, are smaller works grouped into a larger offering, designed to provide a sampling of contemporary Chinese and Chinese-American music.

"The most Chinese thing about our upbringing was eating Chinese food, so it's fun to explore this part of our heritage as well," David Ying explained in a 2005 interview.

The program opens with Mozart's Quartet K.458, the fourth of the "Haydn" quartets, a set of six quartets imitating a number of Haydn's compositional techniques and dedicated to Haydn and their friendship. K.458 is nicknamed "The Hunt" for its rhythms, drones and imitated horn calls evoking the sport.

The evening closes with the intimate Quartet No. 1, "From My Life," by Smetana, the first great Bohemian nationalist. In his writings, Smetana explained that Quartet No. 1 was "more or less a private composition, and therefore deliberately written for four instruments conversing among themselves about the things that torture me."

Smetana's life certainly provided ample material for such conversation, from the death of his first wife and three of his four daughters to a miserable second marriage. In a letter to a friend, Smetana outlined his "program" (explanation) for the music, starting with his youthful love of music and ending with the beginning of his final deafness and pain.

One hour before tomorrow's concert, there will be an opportunity to learn more about the Ying Quartet and the program at a free, informal discussion with the artists.