Sunday, November 13, 2011 at 4 p.m.

Program

Esa-Pekka Salonen: Homunculus for String Quartet (2007)
Mozart: Quartet No. 22 in B-flat, K. 589
Respighi: String Quartet in D Major (1907)

Returning to Candlelight Concerts by popular demand, the Johannes Quartet brings together the first American to win the Paganini Violin Competition in 24 years, Soovin Kim, and Concert Artists Guild Competition winner, Jessica Lee. The quartet’s violist, C. J. Chang, is the Principal Violist of the Philadelphia Orchestra, and cellist Peter Stumpf is the Principal with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. The collaboration among these fine musicians was forged at the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont, and shaped by the legendary Guarneri String Quartet. Indeed, the Johannes continues a legacy of excellence which stretches back to the Budapest String Quartet in the early twentieth century.

In addition to its recent broadcasts on Performance Today and St. Paul Sunday and a triumphant Carnegie Hall debut, the Johannes has had great successes with audiences and critics all over the country. During the 2007-08 and 2008-09 seasons the Johannes collaborated with the Guarneri String Quartet in a program featuring William Bolcom’s Octet: Double Quartet, especially written for them and commissioned by the Music Accord consortium of presenters. They also premiered a newly commissioned string quartet, Homunculus, written for the Johannes Quartet by Esa-Pekka Salonen. For their performances of these groundbreaking works, they received acclaim from audiences across the country, most notably at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the Santa Fe Chamber Festival.