Sunday, September 27, 2015 at 4 pm
Program
Haydn: String Quartet Op. 74 No. 1
Shostakovich: String Quartet No. 3
Dvořák: String Quartet Op. 105
Recognized as one of the world’s great ensembles, the Takács Quartet plays with a unique blend of drama, warmth and humor, combining four distinct musical personalities to bring fresh insights to the string quartet repertoire. For thirty-two years the ensemble has been in residence at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
In 2015-2016, the Takács returns to Carnegie Hall for two programs, one featuring a new work by composer Timo Andres, commissioned by Carnegie Hall, and one with pianist Garrick Ohlsson. They also perform with Mr Ohlsson at Stanford, the University of Richmond, Spivey Hall in Atlanta, and at the University of Florida. For the first time in many years the Takács will perform in Santiago, Chile, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
In addition to their annual Wigmore Hall series in London, where the quartet are Associate Artists, other European engagements in 2015-2016 include performances in Oslo, Amsterdam, Budapest, Hamburg, Hanover, Brussels, Bilbao and a concert at the Schubertiade in Hohenems, Austria.
The Takács Quartet performs Philip Roth’s “Everyman” program with Meryl Streep at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto in October 2015, a program that they previously played with Ms Streep at Princeton in 2014. The program was conceived in close collaboration with Philip Roth and first performed at Carnegie Hall with Philip Seymour Hoffman in 2007. The Quartet is known for such innovative programming. They have toured 14 cities with the poet Robert Pinsky, collaborate regularly with the Hungarian Folk group Muzsikas, and in 2010 they collaborated with the Colorado Shakespeare Festival and David Lawrence Morse on a drama project that explored the composition of Beethoven’s last quartets.
During the 2016-2017 season, the ensemble will perform complete six-concert Beethoven quartet cycles at the Wigmore Hall, Princeton, the University of Michigan, and at UC Berkeley. In advance of these cycles Takács first violinist Edward Dusinberre’s book, Beethoven for a Later Age: The Journey of a String Quartet, will be published by Faber and Faber in January 2016. The book takes the reader inside the life of a string quartet, melding music history and memoir as it explores the circumstances surrounding the composition of Beethoven’s quartets.
The Takács became the first string quartet to win the Wigmore Hall Medal in May, 2014. The Medal, inaugurated in 2007, recognizes major international artists who have a strong association with the Hall. Recipients so far include Andras Schiff, Thomas Quasthoff, Menachem Pressler and Dame Felicity Lott. In 2012, Gramophone announced that the Takács was the only string quartet to be inducted into its first Hall of Fame, along with such legendary artists as Jascha Heifetz, Leonard Bernstein and Dame Janet Baker. The ensemble also won the 2011 Award for Chamber Music and Song presented by the Royal Philharmonic Society in London.