February 24, 2004
Contact: Susan Gwynne
(805) 893-2098
e-mail: gwynne-s@sa.ucsb.edu

The six-time Grammy Award winning Emerson String Quartet brings its vitality and sparkle to a program of Haydn, Debussy and Beethoven at UCSB Campbell Hall

Summary Facts:

• Emerson String Quartet
• One of America’s most acclaimed chamber music ensembles
• Performing a program of works by Haydn, Debussy and Beethoven
• Friday, April 2
• 8 pm / UCSB Campbell Hall
• General public: $32, $27 / UCSB students: $19, $16
• Tickets & Information: UCSB Arts & Lectures at (805) 893-3535

The profound and remarkable Emerson String Quartet, winner of six Grammy Awards including two unprecedented honors for “Best Classical Album,” will perform on Friday, April 2 at 8 pm at UCSB Campbell Hall. Hailed as “America’s greatest quartet” by Time magazine, the group’s performances are characterized by stunning cohesion that gives the four musicians enough room to assert individual styles and even a sense of humor. The program includes Haydn, Quartet in G, Op. 13; Debussy, Quartet in G minor, Op. 10; Beethoven, Quartet in C sharp, Op. 131. The Los Angeles Times claims, “By now a Promethean force in the chamber music world, the Emerson String Quartet blends polished ensemble playing, rigorous individual input and general musical intensity applied in all the right places.”

Acclaimed for its insightful performances, brilliant artistry and technical mastery, the Emerson String Quartet is one of the world’s foremost chamber ensembles. The ensemble is lauded globally as a string quartet that approaches both classical and contemporary repertoire with equal mastery and enthusiasm. For a quarter of a century, the group has collaborated with such artists as Emanuel Ax, Misha Dichter, Leon Fleisher, the Guarneri String Quartet, Thomas Hampson, Lynn Harrell, Barbara Bonney, Barbara Hendricks, the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio, Menahem Pressler, Mstislav Rostropovich, David Shifrin, Richard Stoltzman and the late Isaac Stern and Oscar Shumsky.

Formed in the bicentennial year of the United States, the Emerson String Quartet took its name from the great American poet and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson. Violinists Eugene Drucker and Philip Setzer alternate in the first chair position and are joined by violist Lawrence Dutton and cellist David Finckel.

Throughout its 27-year history, the Emerson String Quartet has garnered an international reputation for groundbreaking chamber music projects and correlating recordings for Deutsche Grammophon and complete cycles of the Bartók, Beethoven and Shostakovich string quartets performed in the world’s major concert halls. In 1988, the Quartet attracted national attention with the presentation of the six Bartók quartets in a single evening for its Carnegie Hall debut. The two violinists in the quartet—Eugene Drucker and Philip Setzer—traded-off playing in the first chair position, a practice that has since become common among several prominent string quartets. The ensemble’s subsequent release of the cycle received the 1989 Grammy Awards for “Best Classical Album” and “Best Chamber Music Performance” and Gramophone Magazine’s 1989 “Record of the Year Award.”

In March 1997, the quartet released a seven-CD boxed set of the complete Beethoven quartets and organized a two-season series of performances at New York’s Lincoln Center entitled “Beethoven and His Contemporaries,” a total of eight concerts that paired two Beethoven quartets with a twentieth-century composition. These performances were completely sold-out and the recording earned a Grammy Award for “Best Chamber Music Album.”

In 2000, the Quartet performed the complete cycle of Shostakovich quartets in a critically acclaimed five-concert series presented at New York’s Alice Tully Hall, as well as at Wigmore Hall and the Barbican Centre in London. The series culminated with The Noise of Time, a theatrical presentation directed by Simon McBurney featuring the Quartet and Complicité. The project explored the haunted life of Dmitri Shostakovich and his 15th String Quartet. Blending film, choreography, taped readings and live music, the multimedia work captured the essence of this composer and his music. The theatrical nature of these extraordinary masterpieces and their powerful effect on audiences led the Emerson to record Shostakovich Quartets live during three summers of performances at the Aspen Music Festival. Meticulous editing eliminated virtually all background noise, and the recording on the Deutsche Grammophon label has been praised for the intensity and energy of the performances. The disc won the 2000 Grammy Awards for “Best Classical Album” and “Best Chamber Music Performance” and Gramophone Magazine’s 2000 “Record of the Year” Award for “Best Chamber Music Performance.”

As part of their residency the Emerson String Quartet will teach a Master Class with UCSB students on Friday, April 2 at 4 pm at UCSB Geiringer Hall. This event, co-presented with the UCSB Music Department, is free and open to public observation.

A&L has previously presented the Emerson String Quartet on January 17, 1985.

The concert by the Emerson String Quartet is presented by UCSB Arts & Lectures and sponsored by Montecito Magazine, KDB Classical Radio, and Fess Parker Double Tree Resort. Tickets are $32 and $27 for the general public and $19 and $16 for UCSB students.

For tickets or more information,
call UCSB Arts & Lectures at (805) 893-3535.

Editor: For photos, please call
Susan Gwynne at (805) 893-2098.