Sunday, May 15, 2022, at 4 pm

Program

Mendelssohn: Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 44, No. 3
Bartók: Quartet No. 3, Sz. 85
Tchaikovsk: Quartet No. 3 in e-flat minor, Op. 30
George Walker: Lyric for Strings

The Escher String Quartet (Adam Barnett-Hart, violin; Brendan Speltz, violin; Pierre Lapointe, viola; Brook Speltz, cello) has received acclaim for its expressive, nuanced performances that combine unusual textural clarity with a rich, blended sound. A former BBC New Generation Artist, the quartet has performed at the BBC Proms at Cadogan Hall and is a regular guest at Wigmore Hall. In its home town of New York, the ensemble serves as Season Artists of The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, where it has presented the complete Zemlinsky Quartets Cycle as well as being one of five quartets chosen to collaborate in a complete presentation of Beethoven’s string quartets. Last season, the quartet toured with CMS to China.

Within months of its inception in 2005, the ensemble came to the attention of key musical figures worldwide. Championed by the Emerson Quartet, the Escher Quartet was invited by both Pinchas Zukerman and Itzhak Perlman to be Quartet in Residence at each artist’s summer festival: the Young Artists Programme at Canada’s National Arts Centre; and the Perlman Chamber Music Programme on Shelter Island, NY. The quartet has since collaborated with artists including David Finckel, Leon Fleischer, Wu Han, Lynn Harrell, Cho Liang Lin, Joshua Bell, Paul Watkins and David Shifrin, as well as jazz saxophonist Joshua Redman, vocalist Kurt Elling, legendary Latin artist Paquito D’Rivera and Grammy award-winning guitarist Jason Vieaux. In 2013, the quartet became one of the very few chamber ensembles to be awarded the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant.

The Escher Quartet has made a distinctive impression throughout Europe, performing at venues such as Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Berlin Konzerthaus, London’s Kings Place, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Slovenian Philharmonic Hall, Auditorium du Louvre and Les Grand Interprètes series in Geneva. With a strong collaborative approach, the group has appeared at festivals such as Heidelberg Spring Festival, Incontri in Terra di Siena Festival, Dublin’s Great Music in Irish Houses, Risør Chamber Music Festival in Norway, Hong Kong International Chamber Music Festival and Perth International Arts Festival in Australia.

Alongside its growing success in Europe, the Escher Quartet continues to flourish in its home country, performing at Alice Tully Hall in New York, Kennedy Center in Washington DC, Chamber Music San Francisco, and the Ravinia, Caramoor and Music@Menlo festivals.

Currently String Quartet in Residence at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas and Tuesday Musical in Akron, Ohio, the quartet fervently supports the education of young musicians and has given masterclasses at institutions such as the Royal Academy of Music in London and Campos do Jordão Music Festival in Brazil.
In Autumn 2016, the quartet released the third and final volume of the complete Mendelssohn Quartets on the BIS label. The set has been received with the highest critical acclaim; Volume II was listed in the Top 10 CDs of 2016 by the Guardian and hailed for its “sheer finesse” by Gramophone, whilst Volume III was nominated for a BBC Music Magazine Award. The quartet has also recorded the complete Zemlinsky String Quartets in two volumes, released on the Naxos label in 2013 and 2014 respectively, to accolades including five stars in the Guardian with “Classical CD of the Year”, a Recommendation in The Strad, “Recording of the Month” on MusicWeb International and a nomination for a BBC Music Magazine Award.

The Escher Quartet takes its name from Dutch graphic artist M.C. Escher, inspired by Escher’s method of interplay between individual components working together to form a whole.

Sunday, April 10, 2022, at 4 pm

Program

Dimitri Sitkovetsky (arr.): Complete Bach Goldberg Variations

Ida Kavafian, violin, Steven Tenenbom, viola, and Peter Wiley, cello, are longtime friends and musical collaborators. With pianist Anne-Marie McDermott, they perform as Opus One. They are veterans as well as present members of the world’s most prestigious chamber groups including the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Tashi, the Beaux Arts Trio and the Orion and Guarneri String Quartets. As soloists as well as chamber musicians, they are each familiar figures in concert halls throughout the world.

Ida Kavafian has given premières of many new works including concertos by Toru Takemitsu and Michael Daugherty, has toured and recorded with jazz greats Chick Corea and Wynton Marsalis, and has had a solo feature on CBS Sunday Morning. She recently retired as Artistic Director of Music from Angel Fire in New Mexico.

Steven Tenenbom has enjoyed a widely varying career as soloist, chamber musician, and teacher of the next generation of talented musicians. Mr. Tenenbom is a member of the viola faculty of The Juilliard School and The Bard College Conservatory of Music, and the coordinator of string chamber music at the Curtis Institute of Music.

Peter Wiley has played at leading festivals including the Marlboro Music Festival, for which he also tours and records. As a recitalist he has appeared at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall. He made his concerto debut at Carnegie Hall in 1986 with the New York String Orchestra conducted by Alexander Schneider. A past recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant, Mr. Wiley joined the faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music in 1996. He also teaches at Bard College Conservatory of Music.

Photos copyright Christian Steiner (Kavafian), Orion String Quartet (Tenenbom), William Wegman (Wiley)

Sunday, March 20, 2022, at 4 pm

Program

CPE Bach: Suite in E minor Wq 65/12
Prokofieff: Sarcasms, op.17
Scriabin: 7th sonata, op.64 (‘White Mass’)
Beethoven: Sonata in B flat major, op.106 (‘Hammerklavier’)

Pianist Marc-André Hamelin is renowned for his fresh readings of the established repertoire and his intrepid exploration of lesser known works of the 19th and 20th centuries. He is admired for his brilliant technique and his questing, deep thinking approach to everything he plays.

In recent seasons Hamelin has appeared as recitalist or orchestral guest soloist in such cities as New York, Chicago, Detroit, Boston, Portland, and in Quebec, Canada and internationally in Antwerp, Berlin, London, Melbourne, Rotterdam, and Milan, among many other cities. A prolific recording artist, Mr. Hamelin has set to disk some 50 CDs for the Hyperion label; these range from the neglected masterpieces of Alkan, Ives, Medtner and Roslavets to brilliantly received performances of Haydn, Mozart, Schumann, Brahms, and Chopin.

In 2010 Mr. Hamelin joined the ranks on CD of noted composer-pianists by releasing his own highly inventive “12 Etudes in all the minor keys” on the Hyperion label and with publication by Edition Peters.

Winner of the 1985 Carnegie Hall Competition, Marc-André Hamelin was born in Montreal. He began to play the piano at the age of five, and by the age of nine had already won top prize in the Canadian Music Competition. Mr. Hamelin’s father, a pharmacist by trade who was also a keen pianist, had introduced him to the works of Alkan, Medtner and Sorabji when he was still very young. Mr. Hamelin is featured in the book The Composer-Pianists: Hamelin and the Eight by Robert Rimm, published by Amadeus Press.