The Emerson String Quartet (Orchestra)
The Emerson String Quartet stands alone in the history of string quartets
with an unparalleled list of achievements over three decades: over thirty
acclaimed recordings produced with Deutsche Grammophon since 1987, nine
Grammy® Awards (including two for Best Classical Album, an
unprecedented honor for a chamber music group), three Gramophone Awards,
the coveted Avery Fisher Prize and cycles of the complete Beethoven, Bartók,
Mendelssohn and Shostakovich string quartets in the world's musical capitals,
from New York to London and Vienna. The Quartet has collaborated in concerts and
on recordings with some of the greatest artists of our time. After more than 32
years of extensive touring and recording, the Emerson Quartet continues to
perform with the same benchmark integrity, energy and commitment that it has
demonstrated since it was formed in 1976.
The 2009-2010 season comprises more than ninety engagements worldwide, with a
three-concert series at Queen Elizabeth Hall in London's Southbank Centre, two
concerts at Wigmore Hall, and performances in Prague and at the Edinburgh
International Festival. European tours feature multiple stops in Spain, Germany,
Italy, Switzerland, Austria and France. North American engagements are
highlighted by a three-concert series entitled Adventures in Bohemia in
the recently-renovated Alice Tully Hall at New York's Lincoln Center. A
correlated 3-CD set for Deutsche Grammophon of Dvo?ák's late quartets,
Cypresses and the viola quintet will be released in 2010. Additional
concerts include Philadelphia, New Orleans, San Diego, Boston, Pittsburgh,
Seattle, Houston, Salt Lake City, Calgary, Toronto and Vancouver, among others.
In 2010, the Emerson embarks on a rare tour of Asia, visiting Seoul, Tokyo, Hong
Kong and Taipei. The Quartet continues its residency at the Smithsonian
Institution in Washington, DC, now in its 30th sold-out season.
2006-2007 marked the Quartet's 30/20 Anniversary Season - celebrating 30
years of quartet activity and 20 years as exclusive Deutsche Grammophon
recording artists. Carnegie Hall honored the Quartet with an historic
nine-concert Perspectives series, titled Beethoven In Context,
held in the Isaac Stern Auditorium. Juxtaposing Beethoven's quartet
repertoire with notable compositions spanning three centuries, the series
received an overwhelming response from audiences, which leapt to their feet
after every concert, and the New York Times covered the series with eight
outstanding reviews. "Concertgoers have come to count on these superb musicians,
who are celebrating their 30th anniversary with this series and who
continue to play with technical command, musical insight, vivid imagination and
tireless enthusiasm." (The New York Times). Additional performances of
note were a Shostakovich cycle at Washington's Kennedy Center and two extensive
European tours, which included concerts in London, Vienna, Prague, Berlin and
Paris and complete Beethoven cycles in Valencia and Badenweiler. Deutsche
Grammophon released a two-CD Brahms album consisting of the three string
quartets and the Piano Quintet with Leon Fleisher. As a special tribute,
Deutsche Grammophon and iTunes joined forces to offer an exclusive three-disc
retrospective of the Emerson in June 2007 - a project featuring recording
triumphs intermingled with personal interviews.
In the fall of 2002, the Emerson joined Stony Brook University as
Quartet-in-Residence, coaching chamber music, giving master classes and
providing instrumental instruction. The ensemble conducted its first three
International Chamber Music Workshops at Stony Brook in June 2004, 2006, and
2008. In addition to these duties, the group performs several concerts during
the year at Stony Brook's Staller Center for the Arts, and continues its
educational affiliation with Carnegie Hall. The Quartet has conducted three
Professional Training Workshops at Carnegie's Weill Music Institute, focusing on
the Bartók quartets, quintets of Brahms and Dvo?ák and most recently the
Beethoven quartets, in conjunction with the Perspective Series. In 2000, the
Emerson was named 'Ensemble of the Year' by Musical America, and in March 2004,
became the 18th recipient of the Avery Fisher Prize - another first
for a chamber ensemble.
Throughout its history, the Emerson String Quartet has garnered an
international reputation for groundbreaking chamber music projects and
correlated recordings for Deutsche Grammophon. 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 Emerson'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" - the first time in the history of each award that a chamber
music ensemble had ever received the top prize.
In March 1997, the Quartet released a seven-disc set of the complete
Beethoven quartets and organized a series of performances over two seasons at
New York's Lincoln Center entitled "Beethoven and the Twentieth Century," a
total of eight concerts that each paired two Beethoven quartets with a
twentieth-century composition. Initial reviews of this series were so strong
that the remaining performances were completely sold out; the Beethoven
recording earned a Grammy® Award for "Best Chamber Music Album."
In 2000, the Emerson performed the complete Shostakovich quartets at Lincoln
Center in New York and in London, in a cycle divided between the Wigmore Hall
and the Barbican. Each series culminated with The Noise of Time, a
theatrical presentation directed by Simon McBurney (Street of Crocodiles,
The Chairs) featuring the Quartet and Complicité, Mr. McBurney's theater
company. Blending film, choreography, taped readings and live music, the
multimedia work explored the haunted life of Dmitri Shostakovich through his
15th String Quartet. Since 2001, The Noise of Time has been
repeated to great acclaim in Los Angeles, Berlin, Vienna, Paris and Moscow. In
2008, New York Magazine named The Noise of Time one of the most
important contributions to the arts in New York since the inception of the
magazine.
The theatrical nature of Shostakovich's music and its powerful effect on
audiences led the Emerson to record the 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 its intensity and energy. The five-disc
set won the 2000 Grammy® Awards for "Best Classical Album" and "Best
Chamber Music Performance," as well as Gramophone Magazine's "Best
Chamber Music Performance" Award for 2000.
Additional projects of note included the 2001 US premiere performances of
Wolfgang Rihm's quartet concerto, Dithyrambe, with Christoph von Dohnanyi
and the Cleveland Orchestra in Severance Hall, Boston's Symphony Hall and New
York's Carnegie Hall. Through these theatrical and orchestral experiences, the
quartet became intrigued with the idea of standing while performing and began to
experiment with this style in chamber music appearances. The two violinists and
the violist of the Emerson now stand for most performances; the cellist plays on
a small podium.
Recordings on the Deutsche Grammophon label include the most recent release,
May 2009's Intimate Letters, featuring chamber works by Janá?ek and
Martin? and winner of the 2010 Grammy® for Best Chamber Music
Performance, J.S. Bach Fugues from "The Well Tempered Clavier", the Grammy®
Award- winning Intimate Voices, a recording of Grieg, Nielsen and
Sibelius string quartets, and the complete Mendelssohn string quartets and
octet, which received 2005 Grammy® Awards for "Best Chamber Music
Performance" and "Best Engineered Album, Classical." The Emerson Quartet has
also recorded Haydn's Seven Last Words of Christ on the Cross, Bach's
Art of Fugue, The Haydn Project (a selection of seven quartets
from various periods of Haydn's career) and The Emerson Encores, preceded
by interpretations of quartets by Schumann, Brahms, Dvo?ák, Smetana,
Tchaikovsky, Borodin and Prokofiev, the set of six quartets Mozart dedicated to
Haydn, the Schubert Cello Quintet with Mstislav Rostropovich, the Schumann Piano
Quintet and Quartet with Menahem Pressler, Dvo?ák Piano Quintet and Quartet with
Pressler, and the complete string works of Anton Webern and Samuel Barber's
Dover Beach with baritone Thomas Hampson. Several of these recordings
were nominated for Grammy® Awards. In 1994, the Emerson won its third
Grammy®, for "Best Chamber Music Recording" with a disc of "American
Originals" - the quartets of Ives and Barber.
Dedicated to the performance of classical repertoire, the Emerson String
Quartet also has demonstrated a strong commitment to the commissioning and
performance of 20th- and 21st-century music. Important
commissions and premieres include compositions by Pierre Jalbert (2011),
Lawrence Dillon (2010), Bright Sheng (2007), Kaija Saariaho (2007), Nicholas Maw
(2006), Andre Prévin (2003), Joan Tower (2003), Ellen Taaffe Zwillich (1998),
Edgar Meyer (1995), Ned Rorem (1995), Paul Epstein (1994), Wolfgang Rihm (1993),
Richard Wernick (1991), Richard Danielpour (1988), John Harbison (1987), Gunther
Schuller (1986), George Tsontakis (1984), Maurice Wright (1983), Ronald
Caltabiano (1981) and Mario Davidovsky (1979).
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. The Quartet has performed numerous benefit concerts for causes ranging
from nuclear disarmament to campaigns against AIDS, world hunger and children's
diseases. The Quartet members were honored by the Governor of Connecticut for
their outstanding cultural contributions to the state, and in 1994 received the
University Medal for Distinguished Service from the University of Hartford,
where they were quartet-in-residence for two decades until 2002. In 1995, each
member was awarded an honorary doctoral degree by Middlebury College in Vermont.
They have also received a Smithson Award from the Smithsonian Institution. In
2006, the quartet received an honorary doctorate from Wooster College, where it
has performed frequently. In May 2009, the four musicians were honored with a
doctorate from Bard College.
The Emerson String Quartet has been featured in New York Magazine,
The New York Times Magazine, USA Today, Elle, Bon
Appétit, Gramophone, The Strad, and Strings. Television
appearances include PBS's NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, WNET's City
Arts, WLIW's Metroguide, and A&E's Biography of Beethoven
and Breakfast with the Arts. The ensemble has been the subject of two
award-winning films: the nationally televised WETA-TV production In Residence
at the Renwick (Emmy Award for Excellence, 1983) and Making Music: The
Emerson String Quartet (First Place for Music, National Education Film
Festival, 1985). To commemorate its 25th-anniversary season, the
Quartet compiled a commemorative book entitled Converging Lines. Written
in the members' own words, the book contains never-before-published text,
graphics and photos from the Emerson's private archives. The Quartet is based in
New York City.
"America's greatest quartet." -Time Magazine
"The Emerson has the traditional string-quartet virtues; each player is a
strongly characterized individual, but the ensemble is temperamentally as well
as sonically in balance. The four minds play upon each other, and upon the work,
in perfect harmony; the players are in tune in all senses of the phrase."
-The New Yorker
"The Emerson gives us playing of exceptional technical accomplishment and
an unusually wide expressive range. They continually offer new insights into
some endlessly enthralling music. Do hear them."
-Gramophone The Emerson String Quartet website www.emersonquartet.com
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