Tuesday, December 2 at 7:30 p.m.
Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights
Program:
Anton Webern: Five Movements, Op. 5
Franz Joseph Haydn: Quartet in G major, Op. 33, No. 5
Franz Schubert: String Quartet in D minor, D. 810 "Death and the Maiden"
Juilliard String Quartet
Joseph Lin, violin
Ronald Copes, violin
Roger Tapping, viola
Joel Krosnick, cello
The Juilliard String Quartet, widely known as the quintessential American string quartet, returns in the 2014/15 season to North America’s premiere chamber music venues in Cleveland, Philadelphia, Detroit, San Francisco, Boston, Toronto, Syracuse and Buffalo, as well as their annual two-concert series at Alice Tully Hall in New York. With The Juilliard School they begin a new collaboration in China during their spring tour of Asia. Their two tours of Europe include concerts in Spain, France, Switzerland and Germany.
Founded in 1946, the Juilliard String Quartet was the first ensemble to play all six Bartok quartets in the United States, and its performances of Schoenberg’s quartets helped establish the works as cornerstones of the modern string quartet literature. The Quartet’s recordings of the Bartok and Schoenberg Quartets, as well as those of Debussy, Ravel and Beethoven won Grammy Awards, and in 2011 the Quartet became the first classical music ensemble to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. In 2014 Sony Classical reissued the Quartet’s landmark recordings of the first four Elliott Carter String Quartets together with the recently recorded Carter Quartet No. 5, making a complete historical document.
For nearly seven decades, the Quartet has made manifest the credo of its founders to “play new works as if they were established masterpieces and established masterpieces as if they were new.” Working closely with composers on new commissions, last season the JSQ premiered the String Quartet No. 3, “Whereof man cannot speak…” by Jesse Jones, and in the 2015/16 season they will premiere a new work by Richard Wernick. The Quartet’s diverse repertoire for the 2014/15 season includes works by Haydn, Webern, Martinu, Beethoven, Berg, Brahms, Mendelssohn,and Elgar, as well as Schubert’s “Death and the Maiden” and Shulamit Ran’s Quartet No. 2, “Vistas”.
Devoted master teachers, the members of the Juilliard Quartet offer classes and open rehearsals when on tour. At The Juilliard School, where they are the String Quartet in Residence, all are sought-after members of the string and chamber music faculty. Annually in May, they are hosts of the 5-day internationally recognized Juilliard String Quartet Seminar.
In performance, recordings and incomparable work educating and training the major quartets of our time, the Juilliard String Quartet has carried the banner of the United States and The Juilliard School throughout the world.