Friday, March 22, 2013

St Lawrence String Quartet to Seek New Violinist

It's look like there will be new opening in St. Lawrence String Quartet for violinist. The ensemble will bit farewell to their current violinist Scott St. John because of Scott residing to Canada. St. Lawrence String Quartet / SLSQ has held the position of Ensemble in Residence at Stanford University since 1998 in California.



The news in detail from their website:

St. Lawrence String Quartet announces pending personnel change19 Mar 2013

Dear Friends,
It is with mixed feelings we share the news of a pending personnel change in our Merry Little Band.
At the end of 2013, Scott St. John will be leaving the SLSQ to relocate to Canada with his family.
The SLSQ will commence a search immediately, with the goal of identifying St. John’s successor by early fall 2013, and completing the transition by January, 2014.

We are all sorry to see Scott leave the quartet -- he has been a substantial contributor to the most musically and personally rewarding of SLSQ's 24 years -- but we respect his decision and bid farewell with warm wishes. While his shoes will be hard to fill, we remain passionately committed to the great adventure that is quartet life. We eagerly look forward to continuing and building upon our commitments at Stanford, our worldwide touring, and projects with diverse composers and collaborators.”

In commenting on his decision Scott writes: “working with the SLSQ for the past seven years has been a fantastic experience. Every member of SLSQ is an inspired colleague and also a friend, and one could not ask for a more supportive environment at Stanford, or a more thrilling concert dynamic within the ensemble. While the decision to leave has been difficult, recently my own family obligations have become more important, and I look forward to being a full-time father when my family is settled in Canada.”

Jonathan Berger, Stanford University’s Denning Family Provostial Professor added: “the St. Lawrence String Quartet have had a transformative effect on the University community at-large, and have been integral to the critical role the arts play at Stanford. The crown jewels of the music program, the quartet's artistry, collegiality, and passion for chamber music is felt in concert, teaching, and diverse outreach activities. We look forward to many more years of their greatness!” 

http://slsq.com/news/st-lawrence-string-quartet-announces-pending-personnel-change

Over their careers they had put in recordings of string quartet repertoire, included John Adams, Shostakovich, Schumann and Tchaikovsky. See their stellar discography here and buy it here:



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John Adams String Quartet - Attacca String Quartet 2013

John Adams (February 15, 1947-)
Performer: Attacca String Quartet
Label: Azica
Release: March 2013

Pieces:
John's Book of Alleged Dances for String Quartet and Prepared Piano
String Quartet no.1
String Quartet no.2
Fellow Traveller

BUY IT HERE AT Amazon

The Attacca string quartet will released their new CD with John Adams complete work in string quartet. The quartet which is also busy with the Haydn project '68' is having a love affair with John Adams work in the genre. Here some of the notes taking from various website:

Time Out saysThu Mar 15 2012

Currently serving as the graduate resident string quartet at Juilliard, this vibrant young foursome ditches school and hits the club to celebrate its brilliant new CD, Fellow Traveler: The Complete String Quartet Works of John Adams, with the composer in the house for the party.

and a detail interview by The Glass:

In its 10th anniversary year, the intrepid Attacca Quartet releases its first commercial CD, Fellow Traveler: The Complete String Quartet Music of John Adams on Azica Records [ACD-71280] (Also being released on March 26th). Demonstrating what The Strad called “musical maturity far beyond its members’ years” and possessing “fierce dedication” (The New York Times) to new music, Attacca embarks on a journey through some of Adams’s most eclectic chamber scores on this high-spirited new disc.

In addition to the famously demanding String Quartet (2008) and John’s Book of Alleged Dances (a fantastical collection of 10 short pieces for string quartet and pre-recorded rhythm track), the disc includes the first ever recording of Adams’s five-minute tribute to Nixon in China/Dr. Atomic collaborator Peter Sellars. The album represents the culmination of several years of work on this music that began with the group’s first performance of the String Quartet at Alice Tully Hall in December 2009.

CM: Can you please talk about recording the first CD and why you chose to make it exclusively John Adams’s music?

In 2009, we were asked by the Juilliard School to play John Adams’ recently composed string quartet for both the St. Lawrence Quartet (who were premiering the work that month) and John Adams himself. Having worked with John on the piece, he asked us to give the Alice Tully Hall premiere of the work, after which we started to perform it frequently. We fell in love with the piece, and when we began to talk about ideas for a new album, the music of John Adams was a natural choice for all four of us. We were big fans of the Book of Alleged Dances, and we were happy to discover that the short piece for string quartet, “Fellow Traveler”, had never been recorded. We love to play John’s music, and audiences love to hear it. As one of the most successful and respected living American composers, he writes music that is compositionally brilliant and nuanced, but still has popular appeal–no small task. And as an American group, it is our pleasure to present music so wonderfully representative of that unique school of composition.

more in this link


excellent photo art by the string quartet in Lomo style
 
 
Attacca String Quartet
 
 
 


Sunday, March 17, 2013

Quatuor Ysaye to Disbanded 2014 - Beethoven String Quartet

Another long time running Quatuor Ysaye stated their future retired plan, to be happen in 2014. The news from their official website:

On Thursday, November 1st, 2012, after performing the entire corpus of Beethoven's String Quartets at the Pays de Fayence String Quartet Festival in the South of France, the Ysaÿe Quartet announced that it was bringing its thirty-year career to an end in January 2014.
The fourteen months ahead are to be devoted a major series of concerts, with a special emphasis on the music of Beethoven.

Founded in 1984 by a group of students at the Paris Conservatoire, the Quartet took its name from Eugène Ysaÿe (1858-1931), a violinist, chamber musician and composer whose influence is still felt today.

From the start and more especially after winning First Prize at the prestigious Evian String Quartet Competition in 1988, the Ysaÿe Quartet has stood at the pinnacle of the international chamber music scene, on a par with such legendary formations as the LaSalle and Amadeus Quartets that provided an inspiration for its work. It has brought an open-minded, committed and unfussy approach, characteristic of great playing, to a wide range of repertoires, from Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven to contemporary composers, who have often written specially for it, such as Boucourechliev, Dusapin, Tanguy, Krawczyk, Escaich, Fraisse or Cerha. At the same time, teaching commitments have long been a central part of the Quartet's activities. In 1993, Miguel da Silva persuaded his colleagues to join him in setting up a specific String Quartet course at the Paris National Conservatoire (now the Paris Regional Conservatoire). This was a national first. Ysaÿe's students, both French (Psophos, Ebène, Modigliani, Voce, Hermès, Girard, Zaïde and Varèse) and international (Aviv of Israel, Incanto of Switzerland, Difference of Latvia) have won major awards around the world.
Today, alongside alto player and founder member, Miguel da Silva, Ysaÿe consists of violinists Guillaume Sutre and Luc-Marie Aguera and cello player Yovan Markovitch.
The Ysaÿe Quartet' recordings have won innumerable French and international awards.

A new CD is scheduled for release on November 20th, 2012, containing recordings of Brahms' opus 67 quartet and Schoenberg's Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night) with Isabel Charisius (alto) and Valentin Erben (cello). An Ysaÿe Records CD, YR09, distributed by harmonia mundi.

Their latest Beethoven record is a set of quartet:
String Quartet No. 3 in D major, Op. 18 No. 3
String Quartet No. 10 in E flat major, Op. 74 'Harp'
String Quartet No. 16 in F major, Op. 135
recorded on their own label : Ysaye Records

Buy it here Amazon

 


 

 


 

 
 


Sunday, March 10, 2013

List of String Quartet Composers (Part 3)

UPDATED : THIS PAGE HAD BEEN COMBINED INTO THIS ONE! That is the latest version and the page combined into Wikipedia's article as well! Please check it! Meanwhile, this list on this page will no longer being updated, thus supersede.

This is the updated List Of String Quartet Composer Part 2 and Another List of String Quartet Composers that I done previously. It is an additional list to the Wikipedia's list, that included dozen of unknown and left over composer who try their luck in this genre. Most of the composer listed here also has their piece being recorded, so no kidding about their obscure works here.

Alessandro Scarlatti 1660-1725
"Quattro sonate a Quattro”
no.1 in f minor
no.2 in c minor
no.3 in g minor
no.4 in d minor 1715-1725

Ivan Mane Jarnovic (1740 or 1745-1804) Dubrovnik city, at least three string quartets,
No.3 in A major

Jan Jozef Rosler (1771-1813) Czech – at least three string quartets

Jan Křtitel Václav Kalivoda  (Kalliwoda in German) (February 21, 1801 – December 3, 1866
String quartet no. 1 in E minor op. 61 (pub. 1835)
String quartet no. 2 in A major op. 62 (pub. 1836) (published by Amadeus-Verlag in Winterthur, Switzerland in 1999)
String quartet no. 3 in G major op. 90 (Moderato - Scherzo (Vivace in G minor) - Adagio (E♭ major) - Allegretto grazioso (G major)) (published by Peters in 1830)

Johann Carl Gottfried Loewe (30 November 1796, Löbejün – 20 April 1869)
    String Quartet in G Major, Op. 24/1
    String Quartet in F Major, Op. 24/2
    String Quartet in C Minor, Op. 24/3
    String Quartet, Op. 26

Franciszek Lessel (1780 – December 26, 1838) was a Polish composer.
String Quartet No.1 1800
String Quartet No.8 in Bb Op.19


Jean Martin de Ron (1789-1817) – string quartet in F minor and 15 quartets (not confirmed)

František Jan Škroup (3 June 1801, Osice near Hradec Králové – 7 February 1862), Czech
String Quartet No. 1 in F major, Op. 24
String Quartet No. 2 in C minor, Op. 25
String Quartet No. 3 in G major, Op. 29

Ignacy Feliks Dobrzyński (15 February 1807 – 9 October 1867) was a Polish pianist and composer.
three string quartets (Op. 7 in E minor, Op. 8 in D minor and Op. 13 in E)

Félicien-César David (April 13, 1810 – August 29, 1876) was a French composer.

François-Clément Théodore Dubois (24 August 1837 – 11 June 1924)
string quartet in E flat major
Cecilia String Quartet reported performed two string quartet of Dubois believed to be lost previously.

Zygmunt Noskowki 1846-1909
String Quartet No.1 in Dm Op.9 1874/75
String Quartet No.2 in E 1879
String Quartet No.3 in Em 1884
Humorous Quartet in D 1887

Laszlo Lajtha (30 June 1892 – 16 February 1963)
ten string quartets

Engelbert Humperdinck (German pronunciation: [ˈɛŋl̩bɛʁt ˈhʊmpɐdɪŋk]; 1 September 1854 – 27 September 1921) was a German composer,
String Quartet in C Major
String Quartet Movement in E minor
String Quartet Movement in C minor

Wilhelm Kienzl (17 January 1857 – 3 October 1941) was an Austrian composer.
String Quartet No. 1 in B minor op. 22
String Quartet No. 2 in C minor op. 99
String Quartet No. 3 in E-flat major op. 113

Gustaf Bengtsson (1886-1965) Swedish
String Quartet in D major, Composed in 1929, when Bengtsson was around 43 years old

Robert de Roos was born on March 10, 1907 in the Hague and died there on March 18, 1976.
String Quartets: V (1951) / II (1945) / VII (1971) / III (1944-45) by Utrecht String Quartet (2010)

Sándor Veress (1 February 1907 - 4 March 1992) was a Swiss composer of Hungarian origin. String Quartet No.1 1931, no.2 1937

Lex van Delden, born Alexander Zwaap (10 September 1919–1 July 1988) was a Dutch composer.
String Quartet No. 1, Op. 43 (1954)
No.2 1965 no.3 1979

Gottfried von Einem (24 January 1918 – 12 July 1996) was an Austrian composer
String Quartet Nr.1 op.45
String Quartet Nr.2 op.51
String Quartet Nr.3 op.56
String Quartet Nr.4 op.63
String Quartet Nr.5 op.87

Jan CARLSTEDT (1926–2004) Swedish
String Quartet No.1 in D minor Op.2 (1951/2) [19:18]
String Quartet No.2 Op.22 (1966) [26:34]
String Quartet No.3 Op.23 (1967)

Friday, March 8, 2013

New Zealand String Quartet to Recover Violinist after Accident on Feb 2013

Unfortune situation also arise on the side of New Zealand String Quartet.


The News:

New Zealand String Quartet’s first violinist recovers from injury
March 7th, 2013

The New Zealand String Quartet’s first violinist Helene Pohl is recovering from a hand injury after being knocked off her bike in Wellington on 27 February. The accident happened when a motorist opened their car door without checking, causing Helene to swerve and fall off her bike. The fall resulted in a complex break to Helene’s left hand little finger which required plastic surgery. Helene is not expected to be able to play for at least eight weeks as the break heals.

Helene’s injury has had a significant impact on the Quartet’s performance schedule including its upcoming March South Island tour. Where possible concerts from this tour are being rescheduled for later in the year, including at Pen-y-bryn Lodge in Oamaru, Southminster Chapel, Te Anau and Barley Fields Estate in Wanaka.

full story on their official website - New Zealand String Quartet
http://www.nzsq.co.nz/news/new-zealand-string-quartets-first-violinist-recovers-from-injury/

Additional news from local press:

A cycling crash that broke the finger of a Wellington violinist could mean the New Zealand String Quartet having to cancel up to three months of bookings.

Helene Pohl was cycling down Durham St, in Aro Valley, to Oriental Parade about 6.30pm on Tuesday when a young man opened his car door in front of her, causing her to flip over the handlebars.

Pohl does not remember much of the collision, because of the speed with which it happened, but said she hit the car door and her finger took most of her weight when she landed.

Full story here.


Illustrated photos also published on their social network here http://www.facebook.com/NZStringQuartet/photos_stream

We encourage miss Helene Pohl good luck and for her fast recovery!

Juilliard String Quartet Retired Violist 2013

World reknown string quartet ensemble, Juilliard String Quartet announced their retirement of violist Samuel Rhodes, to be happened on July 2013.

photo from JSQ's social network

The news:

After 44 seasons, violist Samuel Rhodes to retire from the Juilliard String Quartet in July 2013.  Roger Tapping joins the JSQ beginning September 2013.

From Samuel Rhodes’s farewell letter:   “My 44th season with the Juilliard String Quartet began one month ago to the inspiring sounds of late Beethoven and Elliott Carter ringing in the air.  As the echo   of these masterworks still resounds in my ears, it is with mixed feelings of great regret and joyous anticipation of the future that I am announcing to you that it will be my last season.  

Even though I am still in very good health and I sense that my playing skills are undiminished, I feel that I have reached a certain age where I must use what time I may have left for things other than the string quartet to which I have been so dedicated for so many years. It will be difficult to leave my three incomparable colleagues and the awe-inspiringly beautiful music that have been so much a part of my existence for so long, but I am sure that, at this time of my life, this is the right thing to do. I am grateful for the privilege I have had to rehearse, debate, recreate and perform the most profound, intimate and sometimes heaven-storming music of all the great composers of the past and of our own times on a daily basis. The constant interaction, musical and otherwise, with three sensitive and intelligent colleagues taking part in our own “quartet universe” is also something that I will miss. This truly must be the best “job” a musician and a violist can have!

The violist who has accepted my colleagues’ invitation to join them, Roger Tapping, has the artistry, experience and expertise to take part in carrying the quartet forward with the same spirit and ideals as it has had in the past. I am very proud to have him take over the viola position and wish him the best in his new life.”

Full story from Julliard news press

Violist Roger Tapping to Join the Juilliard String Quartet Beginning September 2013
JSQ Violist for 44 Seasons, Samuel Rhodes Continues Teaching and Remains Chairman of the Viola Department at Juilliard; Mr. Tapping Also Joins the Juilliard Faculty

Juilliard President Joseph W. Polisi announced today that violist Roger Tapping will join the Juilliard String Quartet beginning in September 2013. He also becomes a member of Juilliard’s viola faculty beginning with the fall 2013 semester. Mr. Tapping currently is a faculty member at New England Conservatory, and for a decade was a member of the Takács Quartet. Violist Samuel Rhodes, who has been a member of the Juilliard String Quartet since 1969, and a teacher at Juilliard, remains on the faculty at Juilliard as Chair of the Viola Department. He celebrates his 44th and farewell season with the Quartet – whose other members are violinists Joseph Lin and Ronald Copes, and cellist Joel Krosnick – performing with them throughout this season and into July, for their traditional Ravinia Festival appearance.

Full story here.

Violist Roger Tapping is Guest Artist With the Juilliard String Quartet on Alice Tully Hall Recital on Tuesday, February 26 at 8 PM
Program Features Samuel Rhodes' Viola Quintet; Mozart's Viola Quintet in D Major, K. 593; and Beethoven's Quartet in F Major, Op. 135

Violist Roger Tapping is guest artist with the Juilliard String Quartet in Samuel Rhodes’ Viola Quintet (1968) and Mozart’s Viola Quintet in D Major, K. 593 on their Alice Tully Hall recital, part of Juilliard’s Daniel Saidenberg Faculty Recital Series, on Tuesday, February 26 at 8 PM. The program opens with Beethoven’s Quartet in F Major, Op. 135.

Full story here.

Found out more about Juilliard String Quartet here.