10/8/13: For Immediate Release Lesley Bannatyne 617-495-2791 [email protected]

Internationally Acclaimed Parker Quartet Named Blodgett Quartet-in-Residence at Harvard University Music Department

The Harvard University Department of Music is delighted to announce that the Parker Quartet will join the music department teaching faculty at Harvard University beginning in the fall of 2014.

“Thanks to the Blodgett Artists-in-Residence Program, we have been fortunate to have had a Quartet-in-Residence for four weeks a year since 1985,” said Music Department chair Alexander Rehding. “However, the role of performance in the music department and the University has changed significantly, and this is the right time to bring professional musicians to campus as full-time residents. We are confident that the extended exposure to the string quartet will be highly beneficial to our students, especially our many talented undergraduate performers, allowing them to engage in the practice of chamber music on an unprecedented scale. We welcome the Parker Quartet to Harvard with immense pleasure.”

The renowned Parker Quartet (Daniel Chong, Ying Xue, violin; Jessica Bodner, viola; Kee- Hyun Kim, cello) will, as part of the expanded Blodgett residency, present free concerts each year for the general public and recitals as part of the Dean’s Noontime concert series. They will teach, participate in class demonstrations, read and perform student compositions, and coach Harvard undergraduate chamber ensembles in weekly master classes for Harvard credit. The Parker Quartet’s full time presence in the program will allow for the expansion of the chamber music and performance study opportunities for students in the Harvard University Music Department.

“With our relocation back to Boston and the invitation to join the faculty of Harvard University’s Department of Music, this is truly a special time for the quartet. The Blodgett Artists-in-Residence Program has a wonderful history of hosting established quartets and with its new expansion into a full-time position, we are honored to have the opportunity to share our artistry with the Harvard community. We look forward to our appointment with great excitement.”

Formed in 2002, the Grammy Award-winning Parker Quartet has rapidly distinguished itself as one of the preeminent ensembles of its generation. The New York Times hailed the quartet as “something extraordinary,” and the Boston Globe acclaims their “pinpoint precision and spectacular sense of urgency.” The quartet began touring on the international circuit after winning the Concert Artists Guild Competition as well as the Grand Prix and Mozart Prize at the Bordeaux International String Quartet Competition in France. Chamber Music America awarded the quartet the prestigious biennial Cleveland Quartet Award for the 2009- 2011 seasons.

Performance highlights from recent seasons include appearances at Carnegie Hall, 92nd Street Y, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Library of Congress, Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Wigmore Hall in London, Musikverein in Vienna, Monte Carlo Spring Festival, Seoul Arts Center, Rockport Chamber Music Festival, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festspiele in Germany, and San Miguel de Allende Festival in Mexico. The quartet recently collaborated with artists including Kim Kashkashian, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, Anne- Marie McDermott, Shai Wosner, Jörg Widmann, and Claron McFaddon. In 2012 the Parker Quartet was the recipient of a Chamber Music America commissioning grant, enabling the ensemble to commission and premiere Capriccio, an hour-length work by American composer Jeremy Gill. This upcoming season includes return engagements to Carnegie Hall, Library of Congress, and Monte Carlo Spring Festival, performances of the Beethoven quartets on the Slee Series in Buffalo, and collaborations with Kikuei Ikeda of the now retired Tokyo String Quartet.

Successful early concert touring in Europe helped the quartet forge a relationship with Zig- Zag Territoires, which released their debut commercial recording of Bartók’s String Quartets Nos. 2 and 5 in July 2007. The disc earned high praise from numerous critics, including Gramophone: “The Parkers’ Bartók spins the illusion of spontaneous improvisation… they have absorbed the language; they have the confidence to play freely with the music and the instinct to bring it off.” The quartet’s second recording, of György Ligeti’s complete works for string quartet was released on Naxos in December 2009 to critical acclaim. This recording won the 2011 Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance.

Currently based in Boston, the Parker Quartet holds teaching and performance residencies at the University of South Carolina and the University of St. Thomas. From 2008 to 2013, the quartet spent much of its time in St. Paul, MN, where they served as Quartet-in-Residence with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra (2008-2010), were the first-ever Artists-in-Residence with Minnesota Public Radio (2009-2010), and visiting artists at the University of Minnesota (2011-2012).

The Parker Quartet’s members hold graduate degrees in performance and chamber music from the New England Conservatory of Music and were part of the New England Conservatory’s prestigious Professional String Quartet Training Program from 2006- 2008. Some of their most influential mentors include the Cleveland Quartet, Kim Kashkashian, György Kurtág, and Rainer Schmidt.

The Parker Quartet will begin their residency at Harvard in the fall of 2014 through the Blodgett Artist-in-Residence program, made possible through a gift from Mr. and Mrs. John W. Blodgett, Jr. The program is now in its 29th year. www.parkerquartet.com

PARKER QUARTET May 3, 2013

The Parker Quartet Appoints Ying Xue as Second Violinist

It is with great pleasure that the PARKER QUARTET announces the appointment of Ying Xue as the quartet's second violinist beginning May 1, 2013. An accomplished chamber musician and soloist, Ms. Xue has played and collaborated with many of the world's great orchestras and artists. A fellow graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music, Ms. Xue received graduate degrees in performance and chamber music under the tutelage of Donald Weilerstein and Miriam Fried. She returns to the United States following continued studies at the Musikhochschule Lübeck with Heime Müller. With her appointment to the Parker Quartet, Ms. Xue will join the ensemble's extensive 2013-14 touring season as well as their Quartet-in-Residence position at the University of South Carolina School of Music. Ms. Xue replaces violinist Karen Kim, who retired from the quartet in February after ten years to pursue other artistic endeavors. Of this appointment Ms. Xue states: "It has been my dream for a very long time to dedicate myself to a string quartet. Now, not only do I have the privilege to join the Parker Quartet, but more importantly, join three beautiful and inspiring musicians on a musical journey for many years. I could not be more thrilled."

Parker Quartet cellist, Kee-Hyun Kim, states: "Immediately upon reading the first few notes of a simple Bach Chorale together with Ying, I felt the three of us heave a collective sigh of relief and delight. Without any words being spoken, she was able to mold and integrate herself into our collective sound, blending herself seamlessly as well as asserting her individual presence! Her sound, her artistry and her vision was so aligned with ours, and we all knew from that first instant that she was the one. Daniel, Jessica and I are incredibly excited to embark on this new chapter of the quartet with Ying, and we look forward to many years of inspired music-making."

YING XUE An accomplished and versatile soloist and chamber musician Ying Xue has won accolades on the competition stage around the world. She is the second prizewinner of the 2011 International Mozart Competition Salzburg, first prizewinner of the 2007 Corpus Christi Competition, and has won medals at the Corpus Christi, Irving M. Klein International and New England Conservatory Concerto competitions among others. As a soloist, she has appeared with the Camerata Salzburg, Nanning Symphony Orchestra, Jinfan Symphony Orchestra, and NEC Symphony Orchestra. A passionate chamber musician, Ms. Xue has collaborated with artists of international acclaim including Donald Weilerstein, András Schiff, Pamela Frank, Kim Kashkashian, and Gidon Kremer among many others. She has been engaged by the Kronberg Chamber Music, Caramoor, Ravinia and Yellow Barn Music festivals, as well as the Winter Chamber Festival in Israel.

Born in Urumqi, China, Ms. Xue began her violin studies at age 4. Ms. Xue received graduate degrees in performance and chamber music under the tutelage of Donald Weilerstein and Miriam Fried as the recipient of the Irene M. Stare Presidential Scholarship at the New England Conservatory. In 2012 Ms. Xue moved to Germany to continue her musical studies with Heime Müller at the Musikhochschule Lübeck.

THE PARKER QUARTET Hailed by The New York Times as “something extraordinary” and by the Boston Globe for their “virtuosic, utterly assured...assiduously cultivated blend of sound,” the GRAMMY Award-winning Parker Quartet has distinguished itself

Parker Quartet May 3, 2013 page 2 of 2

as one of the preeminent ensembles of its generation. The quartet began its professional touring career in 2002 and garnered international acclaim in 2005, winning the Concert Artists Guild Competition as well as the Grand Prix and Mozart Prize at the Bordeaux International String Quartet Competition in France. In 2009, Chamber Music America awarded the quartet the prestigious biennial Cleveland Quartet Award for the 2009-2011 seasons.

From 2008 until 2010, the Parker Quartet served as the first ever Quartet-in-Residence with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra (SPCO). During the 2009-2010 season, the quartet was also the first-ever Artists-in-Residence with Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) and American Public Media (APM).

For more on the Parker Quartet including season highlights and upcoming projects and recordings, click here.

PARKER QUARTET Quartetville blog  October 12, 2012

Interview with the Parker Quartet BY SAM BERGMAN

We caught up recently with three members of the Parker Quartet: violinist Daniel Chong, violist Jessica Bodner, and cellist Kee-Hyun Kim. You can read more about the Parker Quartet here. : What is the personal dynamic of working so closely together with three other people? Dan: Playing in a string quartet is probably one of the most intimate forms of making music. You don‟t have somebody to guide you, somebody who serves as the ultimate say. You have four people coming into a room as equals. That environment promotes a lot of passion, a lot of discussion, a lot of compromising. But, ultimately, when you reach something together as equals, it‟s incredibly rewarding. : How important has mentorship been in your career, both in terms of the teachers who you‟ve had and the work you‟ve done in passing your knowledge to other musicians and to students? Jess: Mentorship has been incredibly important in all ways. Our whole schooling, we were so fortunate to work with people who not only were great teachers but also were great performers. It was so amazing to see how they communicated their thoughts. It‟s something to aspire to in our own teaching. We love to work with different people, different levels of players—not only the technical side but also on the joy of working together. : Let‟s go back to childhood. When did each of you start playing? Was it on the instrument you play now, or did you switch at some point, and what made you gravitate to music? Jess: I started on violin when I was two, after seeing Itzhak Perlman on Sesame Street. I played violin until I was 11 or 12. I remember very vividly that I loved practicing in the lower register of the violin. My teacher recognized this and also something about my personality and she suggested that I try the viola. I practiced both for about a year, and then I thought, “There‟s no reason for me to practice violin anymore, because I love the viola so much.” Dan: My mother studied piano and composition and she got me to begin on violin. I think she chose it mainly because my older brother played violin and she thought consolidating us to one instrument was easier. Kee: I started when I was six, on the cello. I was always exposed to a lot of music. My mom was a piano and composition teacher; my sister played piano. I was always attracted to the cello, maybe because I saw that they sat down all the time. I played clarinet for band in middle school. I played trombone for a year, but cello is the one that stuck. : Did any of you go to summer music programs when you were kids? Where did you go and what impact did that have? Dan: A big place for me during the summers was Encore School for Strings, which doesn‟t exist anymore, unfortunately. More recently, Yellow Barn and Marlboro have been huge inspirations for me. I love those summer music festivals because you‟re in it together with a small group of people who are so passionate about the same thing. Being in an environment where all you have to do is concentrate on making music and having fun is wonderful.

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Jess: For me, the first one was the Disney Youth Orchestra. I don‟t know if it‟s still going on. I did that when I was 11. It was so fun. After that I went to Interlochen for a few summers and then Musicorda, which also doesn‟t exist any more. Kee: When I was 14, I went to Aspen. I don‟t think that was a good fit for a 14 year-old. The summers after that were all geared towards chamber music. I went to the Perlman Music Program and to Kneisel Hall and Music Academy of the West, which was where I met Dan for the first time. : Talk a little about practicing, not rehearsing together, but the individual practice that you have to put in. Did you always like practicing? What were your strategies for powering through on the days when nothing was going right? Jess: When I was younger, I would go in and out of practicing and my parents would have to tell me to practice. But when I got into middle school and high school, at a certain point I really felt, “This is my responsibility.” Around that time, one of my teachers said, “You have to practice three hours a day. That is an absolute.” And so, I would say, “Okay. Well, I have scales to practice, I have an etude, I have this piece and this piece… How am I going to fill three hours?” And just the matter of scheduling how much time I was going to spend on each thing was very helpful. If I‟d decided to practice scales for half an hour, I would get to 20 minutes, and then I‟d say, “I‟m supposed to practice this for ten more minutes.” If you set that schedule for yourself, then you make yourself find more things to do. You get better and figure out how to practice on our own. Now, I think practicing is really special. It‟s your own alone time to craft and explore what you‟re doing outside of rehearsals, to formulate your own ideas about things before you meet together. Dan: I certainly have a love/hate relationship with practicing. It was more hate in the early days. But now, I enter a practice session and think of it as an opportunity not only to learn the music that I need to learn but to hone my craft. I get in this mindset of not feeling pressured to accomplish set things, but using the time to explore and build and be constantly inspired to be a better player. It‟s not just about learning a particular piece. Kee: I was thinking about this today, actually. How practicing is like running, really, whether you love it or hate it. „Cause there‟s days when it can be either. The most important thing is consistency. You have to keep doing it and the more you do it, the more you‟ll enjoy it. I never used to enjoy practicing. I always just practiced enough to get by. But, I don‟t know, I love playing. If you don‟t think of it as practice and work, but as a way to—like Dan and Jess have just said—have it be your own time, where you can just fool around with the instrument and play and produce whatever sounds and be creative and just enjoy it. It‟s all about the joy of creation and getting better. Why wouldn‟t you want to do that?

PARKER QUARTET Boston Globe  June 18, 2012

Parker String Quartet delivers at Rockport BY MATTHEW GUERRIER

ROCKPORT — The string quartet is not as old a technological advance as some — gunpowder, movable type, and double-entry bookkeeping all predate it — but it is old enough to be taken for granted. That is probably why the sound of the string quartet, paradoxically, does not sound as dated as the electronic sounds it is paired with in Leon Kirchner’s String Quartet No. 3, the centerpiece of the Parker String Quartet’s concert on Friday at the Rockport Chamber Music Festival. In Kirchner’s defense, those electronic sounds are vintage 1966, epochs ago by computer science standards. And, really, no matter: The quartet is a great piece, a generous dose of the sort of muscular, pragmatically emotive modernism that Kirchner, who died in 2009, at 90, could do better than almost anyone. There are places in the quartet where Kirchner plays with congruent special effects on tape and on string: a Sputnik-like beep morphing into glassy harmonics from violinist Daniel Chong and violist Jessica Bodner, avian electronic burbles sparking a fizz of passagework from Chong and fellow violinist Karen Kim, cellist Kee-Hyun Kim laying down a thumping, drum-like pizzicato met by similarly hollow resonance from the speakers. But mostly, the electronics exist to goad the quartet into streetwise expressionism, lean and tough, eerie then explosive, something between a noir detective and a space-age Dante. The Parker’s performance was intense, virtuosic, utterly assured. Indeed, the group thrives on combinations of intricacy and power. Their touchstones are precision and an assiduously cultivated blend of sound — focused and wiry at its core and, whatever the style, so well-matched that it can be difficult to tell where one instrument leaves off and another begins. It can also produce a kind of hermetic quality, as in the opener, Mozart’s F major Quartet, K. 590: all taut, short-bowed control and tightly coiled phrases, pinning the music’s eccentric pauses and sudden accents with aggressive propriety. If the Mozart felt like it was in macro-lens close-up, the Parker’s playing in Robert Schumann’s A major Quartet, Op. 41, No. 3, was more wide-angle, more full-blooded, with more depth of field in the byplay between instruments, and more range of color, jumping headlong into every one of Schumann’s quick-changing moods. Both refined and rustic, flipping the discourse from inward to outward on a dime, the Parker made the technology of the string quartet so user- friendly as to be invisible.

PARKER QUARTET The Boston Musical Intelligencer  June 17, 2012

Parker Quartet Gives Rockport Something Big BY LYLE DAVIDSON

Parking was hard to find. The hall was filled. Something big was about to happen at Rockport’s Shalin Liu Performance Center last Friday night. Area concert goers gathered to hear some of the best quartet playing imaginable, playing that The New York Times referred to as ―something extraordinary.‖ The Grammy Award-winning Parker Quartet was in town performing Mozart’s last string quartet, K. 590 in F Major, Leon Kirchner’s 1967 Pulitzer Prize- winning Quartet No. 3 for String Quartet and Electronic Tape, and the quartet Robert Schumann wrote in four days, his Op 41, No. 3 in A Major. In the interest of full disclosure, I should say that, as an NEC faculty member, I have known these players since their student days not so many years ago. For those unfamiliar with the Shalin Liu Performance Center, the wall behind the stage is made of glass, providing a sweeping view of the ocean. Beautiful as the backdrop was on this cool, clear evening, all attention was soon focused exclusively on Kee-Hyun Kim, cello, Jessica Bodner, viola, Karen Kim, second violin, and Daniel Chong, first violin. The Parker Quartet has been participating in the Rockport Chamber Music Festival since 2005, so it was like greeting old friends. Quartet playing is supposed to be hard: these four players made it seem easy. They made the audience smile and nod in response to their obvious delight in the music and in performing. Constantly in touch with each other, they moved and breathed as one beautifully musical organism. Imbued with their strong rhythmic sense, the music of every piece flowed and ebbed with grace. There were four individual players on stage, each one a strong personality, but as in all great chamber groups, they created the effect of being one. The hushed mood of the first two long notes of the opening measure of Mozart’s last quartet was startlingly interrupted by the accented third note and then thrown down with a vigorous descending scale. By the end of the first phrase, it was clear that we were going to hear some truly extraordinary playing. Mozart’s K. 590, written in June of 1790, was one of three string quartets he finished for King Frederick William II. The King played cello, and it is clear from the part that he was a good player. So is Kee-Hyun Kim; he brought great presence to every aspect of the part, even in the long pedal notes. The evident fun of the viola part suggests that Mozart, himself, may have played it. Jessica Bodner carried the part with wit and musicality that the composer surely would have appreciated. First violinist Daniel Chong introduced Kirchner’s third quartet with a brief story that placed the odd pairing of electronic sounds with string sounds in historical context. The opening dialogues between tape and string quartet set up various relationships, sometimes mutually supportive, sometimes protesting what had just been heard. The tutti scrambles were delightful. There were stunning moments in which the quartet blended its sounds with the tape so smoothly that it was difficult to identify which sound source one was hearing. The ending was stunning: The recorded tape texture introduced the last moments, and then the slow ascending chords of the quartet emerged and wiped the recording away. The opening phrases of Schumann’s Quartet Op. 41 No. 3 convincingly conveyed the search for the right key; the offbeats of the higher strings that accompany the beautiful cello line (which gets passed to violin I) were easy and solid without being pedantic. (One sometimes hears the effect of counting during this passage.) The opening phrases of the agitato second movement that features third-beat beginnings were like sighs. The cello’s explosive power that brought

Parker Quartet The Boston Musical Intelligencer  June 17, 2012 page 2 of 2 in the ―almost fugue‖ built to enormous power as each instrument entered in succession from bottom to top. Then, as one, the ensemble turned sweet as the first violin and viola traded phrases of delight that the second violin and cello could not resist. In long and soft octave pedal points, the first violin and cello framed the second violin and viola, who wandered in murmuring sixths until the cello finally persuaded everyone to pick up the ascending fourths that ever so delicately brought the movement to a close. The slow movement is a jewel. While the other parts play with another ascending fourth motive, the dum – pa dum – pa dum of the dotted eighths and sixteenths that are so much a part of Schumann’s vocabulary were articulated with such subtlety by Karen Kim’s quiet energy that the music was moved forward without effort. Throughout the movement and indeed, the entire evening, Daniel Chong, always sure and ―right on,‖ led the group with rich nuances and through many breathtaking ritards with total security. The opening of the final movement is a refrain that one often comes to dread, because the insistent rhythm of dotted eighths and sixteenth (again) is so overplayed. The Parker Quartet turns this into a burst of energy that brings the listener willingly back to the beginning from any one of the diverse paths the piece has taken — the best performance I have ever heard of this movement, of this piece. The Parker Quartet has two CDs out, one containing Bartok’s String Quartets Nos. 2 and 5, and the Grammy Award- winning recording of Ligeti’s First and Second Quartets. The Quartet plans to release a recording of Haydn quartets within the year.

PARKER QUARTET The New York Times  May 6, 2012

Romantics Heated Up and Served BY STEVE SMITH

Jörg Widmann at Zankel Hall Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it, the philosopher George Santayana wrote in a piquant turn of phrase often misappropriated or mangled. Confronted with a program of works by the young German composer Jörg Widmann, like the one presented at Zankel Hall on Thursday evening as part of Carnegie Hall’s Making Music series, you could elaborate on the concept: Those who can remember the past are welcome to make merry with it. Mr. Widmann, who is 38 and could easily pass for younger, is one of Europe’s most celebrated clarinetists and composers, with a remarkable canon of significant works to support that reputation. Prefacing an onstage conversation with Mr. Widmann during the concert, Jeremy Geffen, Carnegie Hall’s director of artistic planning, reeled off a partial list of Mr. Widmann’s major pieces: among them, two operas, with a third in progress, and numerous orchestral works, including one, “Teufel Amor,” recently introduced and toured by the Vienna Philharmonic. Also cited was “Zirkustänze” (“Circus Dances”), performed by the pianist Andras Schiff during a Zankel Hall recital on Wednesday evening. Mr. Widmann’s Making Music concert was linked to Mr. Schiff’s Carnegie Perspectives series, and midway through this program Mr. Schiff played Mr. Widmann’s “Intermezzi.” Conveyed with Mr. Schiff’s customary authority and grace, “Intermezzi” showed Mr. Widmann’s affection for past composers, German Romantics especially. Cast in the ruminative manner of Brahms’s late piano cycles (Opp. 116 through 119), the work exaggerated Brahmsian characteristics. Contemplation became morbid near-stasis; leapt intervals expanded into gaping chasms; ambiguity morphed into inscrutability. Similar if less literal backward glances appeared throughout the program. “Fieberphantasie” (“Fever Fantasy”) exploded Schumann’s anxious lyricism into a buzzing, rattling sequence for clarinet and bass clarinet, string quartet and piano. Mr. Widmann’s prowess as a performer was amply demonstrated in a live-wire account with the Parker Quartet and the pianist Shai Wosner. “Fünf Bruchstücke” (“Five Fragments”), played by Mr. Widmann and Mr. Wosner, lived up to their title not only with aphoristic economy but also with a shattered syntax that imaginatively incorporated unconventional noises: clicking keypads, airy hisses, piano notes made to buzz by laying CD cases on the strings. Fleeting intimations of Bach, Beethoven and more bubbled to the surface during “Versuch Über die Fuge” (“Attempt at the Fugue”), the final installment in a linked cycle of five string quartets, as the Parker members tried, through force or stealth, to form a fugue. Sly wit was always evident. Even when the string players whipped their bows in the air, an effect borrowed from Mr. Widmann’s earlier “Jagdquartett” (“Hunting Quartet”), they did so in canon. Throughout the work the brilliant soprano Claron McFadden piously intoned phrases from Ecclesiastes, as if admonishing the quartet for its vain attempts: no small joke, given the group’s precise, lively exertions.

PARKER QUARTET Pioneer Press  April 16, 2012

Dance review: Beethoven, ballet blend beautifully in Sewell production BY ROB HUBBARD

You don't usually get much ballet at a James Sewell Ballet performance. The Minneapolis-based company tends more toward the modern dance mode, with the pointes and plies of the ballet tradition seeming like ancestors a few generations removed. But choreographer Sewell's classical roots are showing in "Opus 131," an involving and imaginative contemporary ballet that features the Grammy-winning Parker Quartet performing one of Beethoven's last and most innovative string quartets at each performance during the company's spring fortnight at the Cowles Center. A string quartet is a complex organism, with subtle fluctuations in mood and tempo communicated between the four musicians through their eyes and bodies. That means that the dancers won't find things precisely in the same place every night, so must use their ears as deftly as they do their limbs and torsos. And that's part of what made the afternoon performance Sunday, April 15, so exciting. With the quartet performing in front of the stage (practically in the laps of front-row patrons), it's a performance with rewards as rich in music as in movement. Sewell's choreography finds fugues everywhere within Beethoven's Opus 131 quartet, with the first four dancers onstage rising at the entrance of their corresponding instrument, gestures and spins executed in tandem with the snippets of theme being passed from one musician to another. What begins with minuet-like pairings grows more modern by the movement, tutus Would that the second number, "A Sound Embrace," had such a finished feel. Built upon a tango foundation, this collaboration between Sewell, Sabine Ines and the company is way too choppy and fragmented to develop any kind of momentum, only intermittently making an argument for the appeal of that steamy style. In fact, much sexier sections can be found in "Opus 131" than in this tribute to a dance born in a Buenos Aires brothel. There's some imagination afoot, but the ideas don't coalesce into anything cogent or satisfying. Then again, the Beethoven's a tough act to follow. tossed over the women's heads, a jungle gym fashioned from flesh, the Presto a playful game of musical chairs.

PARKER QUARTET Star Tribune  April 16, 2012

Beethoven propels Sewell's dancers BY CAROLINE PALMER

REVIEW: The evening includes a world premiere inspired by tango. As is often the case, music is very much on choreographer James Sewell's mind. Beethoven's "Opus 131" is a piece he's studied over the years since first setting movement to it in 1995 -- and he remains captivated by its complexity. The work leads off James Sewell Ballet's spring season at the Cowles Center, with a sparkling live performance by the Grammy award-winning Parker Quartet (presented in partnership with the Schubert Club). The dance readily responds to the composition's shifting moods. With "Opus 131" Sewell explores several recurring movement ideas. Partnering is not bound by gender, the dancers' movements imitate the rounds in the music, and circles serve as gathering points throughout the work. There are elements of Sewell's trademark playfulness -- such as a nifty ballet equivalent of musical chairs where someone is always left out. But at times the gamesmanship is too much, as if the dancers are naughty kids mugging behind the backs of musicians Daniel Chong (violin), Karen Kim (violin), Jessica Bodner (viola) and Kee-Hyun Kim (cello) seated below the stage. Sewell's choreography connects when dancers Nicky Coelho, Leah Gallas, Cory Goei, Chris Hannon, Nic Lincoln, Sally Rousse and Eve Schulte locate counterpoints within the music. Illusions of floating successfully contrast with a composition that might demand more sharpness. Rousse and Lincoln extend their arms and flex their backs as if to stretch out the movement with the notes, realizing the dramatic possibilities within the music's intricacies. The evening includes the world premiere of "A Sound Embrace," choreographed by Sewell, Sabine Ibes and the dancers. It's an interesting experiment in deconstructing the tango that works best when we see how the parts can combine into something new that still retains the fiery essence of its source -- the elegant stance, the seductive spirit, the elaborate rules of engagement. Sewell and Ibes are particularly smooth partners, gliding across the floor as one. Yet the work feels as if it's still coming together; the scenes don't have a seamless flow yet. A corny theme riffing off the evolution of tango feels forced especially since there is really much more to be said about the piece's ultimate question -- "Does it really take two to tango?" For Sewell and crew the answer is a resounding no -- and hopefully they will keep trying to prove it.

PARKER QUARTET Pioneer Press  February 9, 2012

Review: Yes, the Parker Quartet really is that good BY ROB HUBBARD

What's so special about the Parker Quartet? How is it that a string quartet fresh out of the conservatory could become such a sensation so quickly, snaring the Cleveland Quartet Award - which is something like the Nobel Prize for string quartets - and last year's Grammy for "Best Chamber Music Performance"? Are these kids really that good? Well, based upon the group's performance Wednesday night at Minneapolis' Ted Mann Concert Hall, the answer is yes. It's a group with four distinct personalities that makes some marvelous musical conversation, each contributing their own set of ideas and emotions. And Wednesday's program had plenty of emotional terrain to explore. Felix Mendelssohn's sixth and final string quartet is a dark night of the soul that may have been the last work he completed. Mourning the loss of his sister and months from his own death, he created a work in which ghosts roam. As performed by the Parker Quartet, frantic anxiety gave way to despair, then resignation and, finally, a whispered farewell. Also laden with emotion was the Third String Quartet of American composer Leon Kirchner. Written in 1966, this Pulitzer-winning piece employs a tape of electronic blips, bloops and beeps that often sound like the soundtrack to a vintage video game such as "Pac-Man" or "Space Invaders." Entrusted with representing humanity in a debate with a machine, the Parker Quartet emphasized sorrow and brought urgency to a work that could have sounded archaic and quaint. If it sounds like the group was intent upon dwelling in darkness, know that its members concluded the evening with one of the sunniest works in the string quartet repertoire, Antonin Dvorak's "American" Quartet. Written in 1893 while the composer was vacationing in Spillville, Iowa, it opened up evocative musical vistas that would inspire Aaron Copland and others. More than anything on the program, this demonstrated how individualistic yet well-blended the Parker Quartet can be, with first violinist Daniel Chong singing lead lines like a lyric soprano, cellist Kee-Hyun Kim exuding strength and depth, and the middle voices assertive and exciting in the hands of second violinist Karen Kim and violist Jessica Bodner.

PARKER QUARTET Denver Post  October 9, 2011

Parker Quartet show vigor, energy in Fort Collins concert BY SABINE KORTALS

FORT COLLINS — Newly minted Grammy Award winners, the Parker Quartet kicked off a trio of Colorado performances on Saturday at the University Center for the Arts in Fort Collins. Its members - Daniel Chong and Karen Kim, violinists; Jessica Bodner, violist; and cellist Kee-Hyun Kim — all in their late-20s — performed three demanding works with the vigor and artistic veracity of more seasoned ensembles. In Claude Debussy?'s novel String Quartet in G minor, Op. 10, the foursome delivered technical exactitude without compromising the French composer's bent toward colors, sensations and a looser form than that of his influential Germanic predecessors. Throughout the four-movement quartet, Chong's sure and lucid cues led the ensemble in an animated, remarkably cohesive interpretation of Debussy's sometimes delicate, sometimes grandiose tonal textures and effects. The quartet then deftly executed Leos Janacek?'s singular sound world - comprising short musical ideas that pack an emotional punch - in his String Quartet No. 29 ("Intimate Letters"). Here, Bodner set the ever-quickening pace of the Czech composer's passionate portrait of unrequited love. Arguably saving the best for last, the extraordinarily gifted group elegantly navigated the magnificent heights and depths of Johannes Brahms?' String Quartet No. 2 in A minor, Op. 51. Recalling both Beethoven and Bach, the work is replete with intricate musical ideas and technical tricks ... but the quartet tackled them all with fervor and aplomb. In the Andante movement, especially, Chong shone in his introduction of the warm, soulful melody that overlay a tightly calibrated accompaniment by Bodner and Kim. Likewise, in the third movement that features a double canon, the cellist and second violinist held together beautifully in their variation on the minuetto theme, while Chong and Bodner played a different theme. The brilliant, bursting Finale further demonstrated the palpable connection and close communication among the quartet members. Their polished presence and fresh approach make them a formidable force already, and pave the way for even richer musical interpretations as they continue to mature as individuals and artists. The Parker Quartet performs the same program on the Takács Series at Grusin Music Hall in Boulder on Monday. Call 303-492-8008 for information or visit www.cupresents.org

For Immediate Release Contact: Kelly Belich 651.292.3239

SPCO and Parker Quartet announce new concert series

Three programs to be presented at SPCO Center and MacPhail Center for Music’s Antonello Hall during 2011-12 season

Saint Paul, MN, September 26, 2011 – The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and the Parker Quartet announce today the launch of a new concert series. The series, entitled “All Hearts Listen,” will feature the Parker Quartet in three distinct programs. Each program will be performed once at the SPCO Center and once at MacPhail Center for Music’s Antonello Hall for a total of six concerts during the 2011-12 performance season. The series name, “All Hearts Listen,” is based on a poem by Joseph Eichendorff set to music by Robert Schumann in his Liederkreis song cycle.

About the collaboration, Karen Kim of the Parker Quartet commented, “We're incredibly excited to be starting a concert series in the Twin Cities in collaboration with the SPCO. Over the past three years, the Twin Cities have really become home to us, and we're thrilled to be able to share our passion for chamber music and the string quartet repertoire with our own community. The SPCO is the very organization that brought us to the Twin Cities, and we hope to reach out to the community and enrich the cultural scene through this unique collaboration.”

“We are thrilled to be able be part of ensuring that the Parker Quartet performs regularly here in the Twin Cities and excited that they will be building new audiences for classical music,“ said Sarah Lutman, President and Managing Director of the SPCO.

Hailed by The New York Times as “something extraordinary,” the Grammy Award-winning Parker Quartet (Daniel Chong and Karen Kim, violins, Jessica Bodner, viola, and Kee-Hyun Kim, cello) has rapidly distinguished itself as one of the preeminent ensembles of its generation. The ensemble maintains a prestigious national and international touring schedule, and is based in the Twin Cities where it participates in the local classical music scene in myriad ways.

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During the 2008-09 and 2009-10 seasons, Parker Quartet was the first-ever Quartet-in- Residence at the SPCO, a role which involved individual instrument performances with the orchestra, chamber music presentations, and a robust educational program with public schools through the SPCO’s CONNECT program. Parker Quartet is also well known in the Twin Cities for being the first-ever Artist-in-Residence with Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) and American Public Media (APM) during the 2009-10 season.

Tickets to the series at SPCO Center and Antonello Hall are available for $30 per 3-concert package. Series packages are now on sale through the SPCO website at www.thespco.org/parkerquartet, as well as through the SPCO ticket office at 651.291.1144. Tickets to individual concerts will be available beginning on October 1.

Concert Information: Thursday, Nov. 3, 2011, 7:30 p.m. – MacPhail Center for Music Sunday, Nov. 6, 2011, 2:00 p.m. – SPCO Center Impressions String Quartet in G Minor, Op. 10 Claude Debussy Quartet No. 3 for String Quartet and Electronic Tape Leon Kirchner String Quartet in F Major, Op. 135 Ludwig van Beethoven

Thursday, March 22, 2012, 7:30 p.m. – MacPhail Center for Music Sunday, April 1, 2012, 2:00 p.m. - SPCO Center Illuminations String Quartet in F Major, K. 590 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Ainsi la Nuit Henri Dutilleux String Quartet in A Major, Op. 41, No. 3 Robert Schumann

Saturday, May 12, 2012, 7:30 p.m. – MacPhail Center for Music Sunday, May 20, 2012, 2:00 p.m. – SPCO Center Intimate Letters String Quartet in G Major, K. 156 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart String Quartet No. 2 "Intimate Letters" Leos Janáček String Quartet in C-sharp Minor, Op. 131 Ludwig van Beethoven

The series name “All Hearts Listen” is based on the following poem, which was set to music by Robert Schumann in his Liederkreis song cycle.

:

Wehmut (Melancholy) By Joseph Eichendorff

2 Translation by Emily Ezust

Sometimes I can sing as if I were happy, but secretly tears well up and free my heart.

The nightingales, when spring breezes play, let their songs of yearning resound from the depths of their dungeons.

Then all hearts listen and everyone rejoices; yet no one truly feels the anguish of the song's deep sorrow.

ABOUT PARKER QUARTET Hailed by The New York Times as “something extraordinary,” the Grammy Award-winning Parker Quartet has rapidly distinguished itself as one of the preeminent ensembles of its generation. The quartet began its professional touring career in 2002 and garnered international acclaim in 2005, winning the Concert Artists Guild Competition as well as the Grand Prix and Mozart Prize at the Bordeaux International String Quartet Competition in France. In 2009, Chamber Music America awarded the quartet the prestigious biennial Cleveland Quartet Award for the 2009-2011 seasons.

Performance highlights of the quartet's 2011-12 season include a European tour, with appearances at Wigmore Hall in London, Stadthalle Marburg, Kultur im Oberäu, and Concerts Classiques d'Épinal; appearances with pianist Shai Wosner at Amherst College and Carnegie Hall; and visits to many of the leading colleges and universities of the United States, including the Eastman School of Music, San Francisco State University, and UCLA. This season, the quartet is partnering with The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra to launch All Hearts Listen, a concert series in the Twin Cities of Minnesota. This series will feature the quartet in six performances throughout the Twin Cities.

Successful early concert touring in Europe helped the quartet forge a relationship with Zig-Zag Territoires, which released their debut commercial recording of Bartók’s String Quartets Nos. 2 and 5 in July 2007. The disc received high praise by numerous critics, including Gramophone: “The Parkers’ Bartók spins the illusion of spontaneous improvisation… they have absorbed the language; they have the confidence to play freely with the music and the instinct to bring it off.”

3 The quartet’s second recording, of György Ligeti’s String Quartets Nos. 1 and 2 and Andante & Allegretto, was released on Naxos in December 2009 to critical acclaim. The Ligeti recording won the 2011 Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance. The quartet's next disc will be a selection of Haydn string quartets, produced by Grammy Award-winner Judith Sherman.

The Parker Quartet has been profiled in Time Out NY, The Boston Globe, Chamber Music Magazine, and on Musical America.com for their pioneering performances for audiences in non- traditional venues. In addition to concerts in bars and clubs nationwide, the ensemble was the first String Quartet-in-Residence at Barbès Bar and Performance Space in Brooklyn, New York, in 2007. The residency embraced a series of collaborative concerts with artists of various genres including jazz, folk, and world music. This season, the quartet also collaborated with slam poets through the organization With Our Words. Their collaboration included pianist Seth Knopp and baritone William Sharp in a program that interwove poetry and music to illuminate both mediums.

The Parker Quartet served as Quartet-in-Residence with The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra from 2008 through 2010 and were the first-ever Artists-in-Residence with Minnesota Public Radio for the 2009-2010 season. This year, they will be in residence at the University of Minnesota, working throughout the year with chamber music students. They will also be teaching instrumental lessons at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, MN.

The Parker Quartet’s members hold graduate degrees in performance and chamber music from the New England Conservatory of Music and were part of the New England Conservatory’s prestigious Professional String Quartet Training Program. Their mentors include the Cleveland Quartet, Kim Kashkashian, György Kurtág, and Rainer Schmidt.

ABOUT THE SAINT PAUL CHAMBER ORCHESTRA The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, now in its 53rd season, is the nation’s only full-time professional chamber orchestra and is widely regarded as one of the finest chamber orchestras in the world. In collaboration with five artistic partners – Roberto Abbado, Edo de Waart, Dawn Upshaw, Christian Zacharias and Thomas Zehetmair – the 34 virtuoso musicians present more than 130 concerts and educational programs each year, and are regularly heard on public radio’s Performance Today which reaches 1.3 million listeners each week on 256 stations, and SymphonyCast reaching 335,000 listeners each week on 126 stations nationwide. The SPCO has released 67 recordings, commissioned 127 new works, and performed the world premiere of 49 additional compositions. The SPCO has earned the distinction of 15 ASCAP awards for adventurous programming. Renowned for its artistic excellence and remarkable versatility of musical styles, the SPCO tours nationally and internationally, including performances in premier venues in Europe, Asia and South America. Launched in 1995, the SPCO’s award-winning

4 CONNECT education program reaches nearly 6,000 students and teachers annually in 16 Minneapolis and St. Paul public schools. For more information, visit www.thespco.org.

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PARKER QUARTET ariama  August 3, 2011

The Parker Quartet's Top 5 Works BY DANIEL ENO

"Hailed by The New York Times as “something extraordinary,” the Grammy Award-winning Parker Quartet has rapidly distinguished itself as one of the preeminent ensembles of its generation." - www.parkerquartet.com The quartet gave us a list of their Top 5 favorite works, as well as a few restaurant recommendations from the Twin Cities, where the members currently reside. The Parker Quartet's Top 5 Works Dvorak: Cypresses - Hagen Quartet

Dvorak: String Quartets Op. 96 (DG) Fauré: Requiem - Boston Symphony

Fauré: Requiem (RCA Red Seal) Ligeti: Piano Etudes - Aimard

Parker Quartet ariama  August 3, 2011 page 2 of 2

Ligeti: Works for Piano (Sony) Brahms: Symphony No. 4

Brahms: Symphony No. 4 (Soli Deo Gloria) Leon Kirchner: String Quartets Nos. 1-4

Leon Kirchner: String Quartets Nos. 1-4 (Albany)

Visit The Parker Quartet's Website (http://www.parkerquartet.com) "Immediately following our graduation from the New England Conservatory we were offered a post as one of the first quartets in the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra’s Quartet-in-Residence program. We’ve been living in the Twin Cities ever since (3 years!) and wanted to share some of our favorite picks for great food in the area." - The Parker Quartet Lucia's @ 1432 W 31st Street 112 Eatery @ 112 North 3rd Street Punch Pizza @ See Locations Here Birchwood Cafe @ 3311 East 25th Street Heartland Restaurant @ 289 East Fifth Street

PARKER QUARTET Korea Times  June 22, 2011

Ditto evolves with new talent and repertoire BY KWAAK JE-YUP

Some of the best-looking classical musicians are in town to perform at the third Ditto Festival to be held at various venues around Seoul, starting today. But the real treat at this year’s festival for music aficionados is the new talent and repertoire. The festival marks its third year of a nauseating mix of in-your-face commercialism and classical music, arbitrarily promoted as offering a strictly Romantic French repertoire, with little in evidence. The ensemble that shares the festival’s name and has the central role is actually the only group completely dedicated to 19th-century French composers such as Ravel, Debussy, and Faure. Popularly known for playing to a sold-out audience full of Korean female fans in their 20s with little knowledge of classical music, Ensemble Ditto brings together four young, promising — and good-looking — male artists, Stephan Pi Jackiw, Richard Yongjae O’Neill, Ji-yong, and Michael Nicolas. They are to perform next weekend to close out a week and half of chamber music. Discount the illogical theme and heavy marketing focused on young pretty faces; let the gut resistance recede and look closely; the programs actually are not only varied but occasionally daring — worth a careful listen. Former Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra (VPO) harpist Xavier de Maistre and the Grammy-winning Parker Quartet are the salient first-timers to the festival. “I would like the audience to discover a wide range of colors with the harp,” said Maistre, at a press conference held in the Hoam Art Hall in central Seoul, Wednesday. “I want to make the people feel that the whole orchestra is on stage when I play.” Maistre is a pioneer in the harp world, playing the instrument solo on stage, interpreting re-arranged pieces often written for an orchestra. He is the most famous for joining the VPO, consistently regarded by critiques as the world’s best, at the age of 25. Tonight he is scheduled to play Debussy, Smetana, and works by a group of Spanish composers. Meanwhile, cellist Kim Kee-hyun of the string quartet promised the performers’ own “special point of view” over a varied repertoire that ranges from Haydn to Shostakovich. “Chamber music groups tend to be pigeonholed into a certain period,” said Kim, arguing that their recent focus and fame for Hungarian music interpretations have little to do with the group’s tone. “We want to play everything.”

While the harpist has broken new grounds as a soloist, the Parker Quartet members said they preferred playing as an ensemble.

“I value the connection we make with each other and to the audience,” said Karen Kim, one of the group’s violinists. “That’s why we decided to dedicate ourselves to the medium.”

Parker Quartet Korea Times  June 22, 2011 page 2 of 2

At the festival, the Parker Quartet plays on Saturday with the festival staple Ensemble Ditto and then on Sunday on their own. O’Neill, returning violist with the Ensemble Ditto and the festival’s musical director this year, said he was “fortunate and humbled to have colleagues” of such caliber join him. “It is the easiest opportunity to get to know the artists in this intimate setting,” said O’Neill. Dubbed “the most challenging and daring program tried at the Ditto Festival” by the violist is the Michael Nicolas cello recital with Chinese pianist and child prodigy Helen Huang on Monday. While the selection of Debussy, Piazzolla, and Rachmaninoff may not rightfully reflect the claims of audacity, the 20th-century great Elliott Carter Cello Sonata should provide something to think about for the audience.

Other notable offerings during the one-and-a-half week festival include former participants who make their return as soloists. L.A. Philharmonic Orchestra violinist Johnny Lee plays Dvorak, Poulence, Franc, and Sarasate on Tuesday, and local piano sensation Lim Dong-hyek plays Chopin, Sarasate, Prokofiev, Brahms, and Ravel on Sunday.

PARKER QUARTET Korea Herald  June 22, 2011

2011 Ditto Festival to showcase French works Grammy Award-winning Parker Quartet to join ensemble Ditto in Seoul BY KIM YOON-MI

Now in its fifth season, the 2011 Ditto Festival’s theme will be French classical music including Debussy, Ravel and Faure. The audience will be able to enjoy a special duo recital by ensemble Ditto and another ensemble Parker Quartet, the festival’s artistic director said on Wednesday. All-male chamber ensemble Ditto, led by violist Richard Yongjae O’Neill, has been holding the annual summer event since 2007 to bring classical chamber music to the public. The week-and-a-half week festival, starting with harpist Xavier de Maistre’s first solo recital in Korea on Thursday evening at the Hoam Art Hall, will run through July 3, bringing in young classical artists from overseas. O’Neil, the artistic director, said the summer festival will continue to be fun and friendly, under the French theme. “It was the motto with the beginning, offering fun and friendly classical music and specifically chamber music, which was not a popular genre at all. Ditto’s mission has been to present new faces and reach out to the public,” Yongjae O’Neil told reporters in Seoul. “Every season with Ditto Festival, we’ve had a focal point. My first trip overseas was France and Debussy, Ravel and Faure have left wonderful pieces of chamber music.There was this common thread both for recitals and concerts highlighting French composers,” he said. One of the major highlights will be the duo recital by Ditto and ensemble Parker Quartet on June 25 at the Seoul Arts Center’s Concert Hall at 2 p.m. Parker Quartet is a rapidly-rising ensemble, winning the Grammy Award Best Chamber Music Performance in February for Ligeti’s String Quartets Nos. 1 & 2. Parker Quartet, consisting of violinist Daniel Chong, violinist Karen Kim, violist Jessica Bodner and cellist Kim Kee- hyun, will begin the duo recital with Debussy String Quartet in G minor Op. 10. The program will intensify with Brahms String Sextet in G major which violinist Johnny Lee and violist Yongjae O’Neil, cellist Michael Nicolas will join. The two ensembles will last stage Mendelssohn String Octet in E flat. Another highlight will be the duo recital of Pianist Lim Dong-hyek and violinist Shin Hyun-su, the only two Koreans to have won the prestigious Long-Thibaud International Competition. Lim and Shin’s concert is scheduled on July 3 at 2 p.m. at the SAC, and the two artists said their duo will be “flamboyant.” The program includes Sarasate’s “Faust Fantasy,” a Brahms scherzo and a Ravel violin sonata. On July 2, Pianist Kim Tae-hyung, violinist Hahn-bin, ensemble TIMF with conductor Adriel Kim will stage their Ravel compilation at the SAC, under the title “This is RAVEL!”

PARKER QUARTET The Boston Globe  April 6, 2011

New England Conservatory spotlights two alumni quartets BY JEREMY EICHLER

New England Conservatory these days takes deserved pride in its string faculty, with performers of international prominence like violist Kim Kashkashian teaching alongside, for instance, three former members of the Cleveland String Quartet. One of the former Clevelanders, cellist Paul Katz, took the stage of Jordan Hall Monday night to describe NEC’s Professional String Quartet Training Program to a large crowd that had gathered for this month’s installment of the free First Monday concert series. Over the last decade, Katz explained, NEC has opened its doors to one early-career ensemble every two years. The group is given a residency at the school, coaching and mentorship, and most importantly, the time and space to rehearse. That the quartet program — and the string faculty more generally — have succeeded at attracting excellent young ensembles and helping them develop was clearly demonstrated by Monday’s performance by two alumni groups: the Parker Quartet and the Jupiter Quartet. Both foursomes are now out there climbing the ranks of young American string quartets, and making significant strides. The Parker snapped up a Grammy this year for its Naxos recording of Ligeti’s String Quartets, and the group is now turning its attention to Haydn. Monday’s concert featured the Quartet Op. 74, No. 1. In evidence from the opening bars were the Parker’s warm and smoothly blended tone and its meticulous attention to details in balance and phrasing. The playing was lively and sleekly contoured, though it was not until the fourth movement that this performance caught fire and fully cast aside the veil of decorousness that can sometimes obscure the remarkable qualities — invention and wit, charm and fantasy — of Haydn’s quartet writing. The Jupiter, whose most recent recording on the Marquis label surveys works by Mendelssohn and Beethoven, then took the stage with Beethoven’s magisterial late Quartet Op. 131, a work whose complexities and profundities make it daunting for ensembles of any age. Yet in a display of thoughtful and sensitive musicianship, the Jupiter delivered a performance that captured many of the work’s searching qualities and found a tender pathos in its lyricism. It was a reading that grew progressively stronger, overcoming moments of initial tentativeness to embrace the extremes of the later movements. Of course it’s not a two-quartet party until someone breaks out the Mendelssohn Octet. And somebody did after intermission. Mendelssohn’s dazzler can be even more fun to play than it is to listen to — a kind of dessert for the hard- working quartet musician — and you could feel both the exuberance and the adrenaline fueling this performance. The Parker’s Daniel Chong laid into the demanding first violin part with pointed precision and at times explosive energy.

PARKER QUARTET Kansas City Star  January 23, 2011

Parker Quartet closes Music Alliance’s first season in lushly romantic fashion BY ROBERT FOLSOM

The Parker Quartet wrapped up the inaugural season of the Music Alliance — a partnership between the University of Missouri-Kansas City’s Conservatory of Music and Dance and the Friends of Chamber Music — Saturday night at White Recital Hall with a concert of romantic expressions and modern tensions. The Romantic era was represented by Antonin Dvorak’s “Cypresses for String Quartet, B. 152,” which opened the concert, and Felix Mendelssohn’s “Quartet No. 4 in E Minor, Op. 44, No. 2,” which closed the concert. “Cypresses” is a series of 12 short pieces. The program listed three — I. “I know that on my love” (Moderato); II. “Death reigns” (Allegro ma non troppo); and IX. “Thou only dear one” (Moderato). But a fourth piece was announced from the stage: XI. “Nature lies peaceful.” From the beginning, the Parker Quartet (Daniel Chong, violin; Karen Kim, violin; Jessica Bodner, viola; and Kee-Hyun Kim, cello) produced a lush chordal sonority. The decision to include “Nature lies peaceful” was a good one; it was more contrapuntal than the three previous pieces and made a fine conclusion to Dvoøák’s Romantic gestures. Violinist Kim introduced György Kurtág’s modern “Hommage à Mihály András: Twelve Microludes for String Quartet, Op. 13,” by having the quartet play the first notes of the first three pieces. The third note was a loud pizzicato with a grand sweep of bows. The effect was comical, but the execution of the chromatic Kurtág showed that this is a serious quartet that can navigate the exigencies of atonal gestures with comfortable expertise. Before intermission, the Parker Quartet performed Paul Hindemith’s five-movement “String Quartet No. 4, Op. 22.” The first two movements and the last two movements were played without pause, leaving the third movement to stand alone with a pulse from the cello beneath Hungarian hints of Bartók melodicism. The quartet played Hindemith’s complex textural score with a conviction that excited the air. How else to clearly communicate to the 70 or so people in the audience the composer’s neoclassical melodies, counterpoint and rhythms? When the quartet closed with Mendelssohn’s “Quartet No. 4, “its most striking feature was the aural equivalent of the sum being greater than its parts: Four-part chords produced a large sound as string overtones reinforced string overtones. Otherwise, the Mendelssohn was too light following the Hindemith. The final movement, Presto agitato, had a lulling effect, in spite of its rhythmic motion. A better programming choice would have been to end with the Hindemith, with its dramatic, declarative conclusion.

PARKER QUARTET Buffalo News  December 8, 2010

Parker Quartet justifies Grammy nomination BY HERMAN TROTTER

The Parker Quartet arrived in Buffalo for its Tuesday evening concert on the Buffalo Chamber Music Society series proudly toting a brand new Grammy nomination for its Naxos recording of Ligeti’s complete string quartets. And happily, his Quartet No. 1 (“Metamorphoses Nocturnes”) had been planned months ago for performance during this visit to Kleinhans’ Mary Seaton Room. It was the centerpiece of three works from the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, each of which was transitional for its composer and/or for the quartet art form. His 1954 Quartet No. 1 came at the time when Ligeti (1923-2006) was breaking free from conservatism and finding his own, more progressive voice. Somewhat reminiscent of Bartok, the quartet is in one continuous movement but establishes a unique form with short, strident ideas passing in quick and varied succession. They do not, however, leave a feeling of disorganization or randomness in their wake. The Parker musicians gave such a compelling performance that it is easy to understand their Grammy nomination. The concert had opened with Haydn’s 1772 Quartet in C, Op. 20, No. 2. The six Opus 20 quartets were landmarks in the development and formalizing of the quartet form. No. 2, for example, demonstrated how Haydn established equal value for the four instruments, opening with the cello intoning a melody actually above its companions, while the viola and each violin later had its turn in the spotlight. In the rather heavy, dark Adagio, covering a wide dynamic range, the cello is again entrusted with the main theme, while the Menuetto is quite chromatic, and the Finale is a joyously bubbling fugue, again with striking dynamic leaps a prominent feature. The ensembles negotiated all this with fine transparency and clarity of articulation. Last up was Beethoven’s 1826 Quartet in C-sharp minor, Op. 131, from the group of five late quartets that established new, elevated levels of vision and profundity that still stand apart 184 years later. In seven movements played without pause, Beethoven’s creativity seems propelled by a restlessness, as though he just couldn’t wait to get his next startling idea onto the score and out into the air. The artists were technically right on top of everything and were especially expressive in the turbulent second movement, the exciting thrust and energy of the fifth and seventh movements, and provided the gently lilting Andante variations with superb pacing and phrasing. The opening fugue was a bit too deliberate, and the artists were also prone to occasional overstatement of accented attacks. Some ensembles never get a grip on the towering Op. 131, but the young Parker Quartet seems well on its way to finding an individual and enduring conception of this masterwork.

PARKER QUARTET Times Union  November 22, 2010

Parker Quartet does Haydn justice BY JOSEPH DALTON

A world of style, color and sentiment came from the Parker Quartet during its Saturday concert presented by the Friends of Chamber Music at the Emma Willard School.

That's really not so unusual an occurrence. It seems like dynamic fresh-faced quartets are a dime a dozen these days and the Parker, which easily fits that category, already made a fine local debut at Union College back in 2006. What made Saturday's program surprising and special is that the breadth of expression was wrought from music by just one composer, and that it was Haydn at that.

Though he completed 67 quartets and 104 symphonies, it's easy to think of Haydn's music, with its neat classical strains, as all the same. That's partly due to how it's doled out in single servings, usually as concert openers, warm-ups really, before musicians move onto meatier material of the romantic and modern eras.

By delivering a succession of three Haydn quartets and keeping it all rather fresh, the Parker showed both thoughtfulness and imagination. Add in the fact that they played everything from memory and this concert was a stunning accomplishment. It's a good thing they're recording the program later this week in Boston.

The opener was the best, the Quartet in C Major, Op. 20, No. 2. In the first movement, the violins had a glassy smoothness and the cello added a warmth depth. The many unison passages of the Adagio sounded as if one big instrument was playing. And then came the Menuetto. Played in a sotto voce hush and at quite a clip, it brought to mind an old tape deck set on fast forward. The notes were all there but fast and shadowy.

Next up was the Quartet in G Major, Op. 74 No. 3 "The Rider." First violinist Daniel Chong had a few pitch problems early on, but so much was happening all the time one hardly had space to ponder the small errors. A cool detail came in the spinning texture all the players put on the first note of the bouncing main them in that same opening Allegro. It was like a baseball pitcher throwing a fast curve ball with a fancy wind up. The finale galloped right along and explained the piece's subtitle.

There were no moments in the final Quartet in F Major, Op. 77 No. 2 to match what came before intermission. But the same warm loving embrace of the music was still there. As an encore, the lively scherzo from Op. 77, No. 1 brought the evening to a close.

Parker Quartet La Crosse Tribune • April 11, 2010

Parker Quartet dazzles Viterbo crowd

BY TERRY RINDFLEISCH

La Crosse native and violinist Karen Kim frequently mentioned her quartet’s striking chemistry during the ensemble’s residency in La Crosse schools the past few days.

On Sunday, the Parker Quartet displayed that chemistry and showed why it is one of the world’s best young string quartets, dazzling a Bright Star Season audience at Viterbo University.

The St.-Paul based quartet, made up of graduates of New England Conservatory of Music in Boston in their 20s, sparkles like a diamond with its magnificent sound and clear, concise tone. The Parker Quartet opened with a fantastic performance of Hadyn’s first quartet. The ensemble played the Haydn piece with a lightness and brilliance.

The three pieces for string quartet and concertino by Igor Stravinsky showed off the delicate intricacies and complexities of ensemble playing. The Parker Quartet painted a wonderful abstract picture with fluidity and exuberance.

The Parker Quartet finished with the glorious second quartet by Robert Schumann. The ensemble brought a freshness and charm to this masterpiece. The Parker Quartet is an extraordinary well-balanced, fine-tuned foursome with impeccable technique and intonation and phenomenal phrasing.

This quartet plays with maturity and wisdom beyond their years. This concert was pure joy.

Contact: Christina Schmitt [email protected] 651-290-1449 www.mpr.org

CLASSICAL MINNESOTA PUBLIC RADIO TO HOST THE PARKER QUARTET DURING A FIRST-EVER ARTISTS-IN-RESIDENCY

The Parker Quartet to perform concerts throughout the region, including The Varsity Theater in Minneapolis on April 15

(St. Paul, Minn.)—December 15, 2009—Classical Minnesota Public Radio announced today its first-ever artists-in-residency, the Parker Quartet. The group will embark on a multi-tiered program throughout 2010—which includes appearances on Performance Today broadcasts, concerts throughout the region and at a non-traditional venue, The Varsity Theater in Minneapolis. The group will also teach masters classes, and will host a national string quartet competition for aspiring classical musicians.

“We have long hoped to host an up-and-coming classical music group,” says Brian Newhouse, senior producer, Classical Minnesota Public Radio. “When we met the Parker Quartet, we said, „Yes—bingo!‟ They are so wonderful and generous with their performances and their can-do spirit about working together.”

The Parker Quartet features rising stars in the classical music world. The New York Times calls the Parker Quartet “something extraordinary.” The Boston Globe hails their “fiercely committed performances.” The Washington Post declares them “a quartet that deserves close attention.” Just three months after winning the 2005 Concert Artists Guild Competition, the Quartet captured First Prize and the Mozart Prize at the Bordeaux International String Quartet Competition, sparking international acclaim. In 2009, the Parker Quartet was awarded the prestigious Cleveland Quartet Award.

“The most exciting thing about this residency is the feeling of possibility,” said Karen Kim, violinist for the Parker Quartet. “There is a great desire to support the arts in this community, and we can‟t wait to see how far we can take this.”

As a significant community and cultural Minnesota institution, MPR works closely with organizations such as the Minnesota Orchestra, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and others to bring fine musicians to larger audiences. MPR believes that accessibility is key to the future of classical music, and thus will provide low ticket prices for all of The Parker Quartet regional concerts.

The Parker Quartet‟s residency with Classical Minnesota Public Radio is sponsored in part by the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund, created by the Minnesota Legacy Amendment. State funding is used only for residency activities that take place in Minnesota.

More about the Parker Quartet The Parker Quartet has distinguished itself as one of the preeminent ensembles of its generation. The Parker Quartet began its professional touring career in 2002, and in 2005 sparked international acclaim by winning the Concert Artists Guild Competition as well as the Grand Prix and Mozart Prize at the 2005 Bordeaux International String Quartet Competition in France. Most recently, the Quartet was awarded the prestigious 2009-2011 Cleveland Quartet Award.

The Parker Quartet are Daniel Chong (violin), Karen Kim (violin), Jessica Bodner (viola) and Kee-Hyun Kim (cello). Equally at home in a concert hall or a downtown club, the Parker Quartet has been profiled in Time Out NY, The Boston Globe, Chamber Music Magazine, and on Musical America.com for their pioneering performances in non- traditional venues. Each member holds graduate degrees from the New England Conservatory of Music.

The Parker Quartet is currently is in its second season as Quartet-in-Residence with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, and Quartet members are the first-ever Artists-in- Residence with Minnesota Public Radio and American Public Media. In addition to the Quartet‟s extensive international tours, recent U.S. appearances include performances at the Library of Congress, the Caramoor Center, Market Square Concerts and the Detroit Chamber Music Society.

The Parker Quartet‟s 2007 debut commercial recording (released by Zig-Zag Territoires), which featured Bartok‟s String Quartets Nos. 2 and 5, received high praise from industry critics including Gramophone. Their latest recording, of György Ligeti‟s String Quartets Nos. 1 and 2 and Andante & Allegretto, was released on the Naxos label in 2009 and will be available in stores this month.

For more information about the Parker Quartet, go to www.parkerquartet.com/. Exclusive North American management for the Parker Quartet is provided by Opus 3 Artists, www.opus3artists.com/.

Copies of the Parker Quartet‟s most recent CD are available upon request.

The Parker Quartet to be heard on Performance Today broadcasts Every first Thursday of the month, starting January 7, 2010 from 11 am.-1 p.m. CST, the Parker Quartet will join host Fred Child for a performance and chat on Performance Today. The broadcasts will go through summer 2010.

Tune in: Performance Today is heard weekdays 11 a.m.-1 p.m. CST on all Classical Minnesota Public Radio stations and on classical public stations nationwide, and online at performancetoday.publicradio.org/.

Schedule of The Parker Quartet’s regional concerts:

Bemidji: Thursday, January 21 7:30 p.m. Bemidji State University, Thompson Recital Hall in the Bangsberg Fine Arts Complex, Bemidji, MN Tickets: $20 adults / $5 students. MPR members receive a discount. For tickets, call 218-755-2915.

Sioux Falls: Saturday, January 23 2 p.m. Augustana College, Kresge Recital Hall, Sioux Falls, SD Tickets: $12 adults / $8 for seniors and students. MPR members receive a discount. For tickets, call 605-274-5320 or go online at augietickets.com

Duluth: Tuesday, February 2 7:30 p.m. St Scholastica, Mitchell Auditorium, Duluth, MN Tickets: $17 adults / $5 students. MPR members receive a discount. For tickets, call 218-723-7000 or go online at www.css.edu/mitchell.xml.

Decorah: Thursday, March 4 7:30 p.m. Luther College, Jenson Nobel Recital Hall, Decorah, Iowa. Tickets: $15 adults / $10 seniors and students. Free to Luther College students. MPR members receive a discount. For tickets, call 563-387-1357 or go online at http://boxoffice.luther.edu.

Minneapolis: Thursday, April 15 7 p.m. The Varsity Theater, Minneapolis, MN Tickets: $12/$10 for Minnesota Public Radio members. For tickets, go to varsitytheater.org.

Parker Quartet The Boston Globe  January 22, 2010

Four’s a charm for Parker Quartet BY DAVID WEININGER

Pictured, from left: Karen Kim, Kee-Hyun Kim, Jessica Bodner, and Daniel Chong of the Parker Quartet. (Janette Beckman)

The Parker Quartet is one of four ensembles to have come out of New England Conservatory’s prestigious Professional String Quartet Training Program. Like the other three, the Parker - which graduated from the program in 2008 and whose members were also undergraduates at NEC - The quartet recently released its second CD: the two string quartets of Hungarian composer György Ligeti, along with an early Andante and Allegretto (Naxos). If these recordings are anything to go by, the Parker’s future is bright indeed. Both quartets consist of knotty, difficult music. The first, written in the mid-1950s, takes off from Bartok and is full of the older master’s angular melodies, jarring rhythms, and crunchy dissonances; the second - one of Ligeti’s best-known chamber pieces - unveils a kaleidoscope of unusual textures. The Parkers tear through this music with both pinpoint precision and a spectacular sense of urgency. Whether the music floats or pounds, they play with a confidence of those speaking a native language. The quartet’s website features two videos made at the recording sessions, and for all the music’s nervous intensity, the Parker Quartet’s members seem to radiate an air of calm mastery over it. For years, the preferred recording of these two

Parker Quartet The Boston Globe  January 22, 2010 page 2 of 2 works has been that by the Arditti String Quartet in Sony’s Ligeti Edition; this is the first real competition to come along, as the Parkers match them at virtually every turn. Hopefully the quartet, currently in its second season in residence with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, will soon make a visit to its old stomping ground. Until then, this excellent CD will serve as proof positive of its potential. www.parkerquartet.com

Parker Quartet The Washington Post  December 21, 2009

Parker String Quartet at Library of Congress BY JOE BANNO

Beethoven's late quartets are still, after nearly 200 years, among the best barometers for assessing a string quartet's interpretive profile. These complex, emotionally restive works from the end of the composer's life open themselves to a wide variety of responses. They prove alternately nostalgic and daringly forward-looking in terms of style. The Parker String Quartet -- a youthful ensemble of New England Conservatory grads -- brought freshness and light to the first of the late quartets, the E-flat Quartet, Op. 127, at the Library of Congress on Friday. There was a notable ardor and tenderness to the first movement, a rapt reflectiveness in the second, and subtly inflected, quicksilver engagement with Beethoven's intricate writing in the Scherzando and Finale. Nothing was offhand or superficial in the Parker's emotionally mature reading, but the players found the breath of youth under the composer's autumnal ruminations. Haydn's Quartet in C, Op. 20, No. 2, drew a performance that was so light on its feet it was practically airborne, though the ensemble also made compelling work of the plunge into darkness at the opening of the slow movement. And in Henri Dutilleux's moody and mysterious first string quartet, "Ainsi la Nuit," the Parker distilled a potently unsettling atmosphere from coloristic devices like sudden bursts of pizzicato, a series of eerie upper-string harmonics and the evocatively slow decay of released notes. Stradivari, Amati and Guarneri instruments from the library's collection, loaned to the musicians for this recital, contributed silver-toned elegance to everything they played.

Parker Quartet The Tallahassee Democrat  January 26, 2009

Parker String Quartet shines with electric concert performance BY STEVE HICKEN

We don't get to hear a great many of the superstars of the concert music world here in Tallahassee. But because Tallahassee is a music center we do get to hear quite a few up-and-comers. Among the best of the many young string quartets that have appeared in the United States in the last few years is the Parker String Quartet, who played a program of quartets by Franz Joseph Haydn, Béla Bartók, and Ludwig van Beethoven as part of the Artist Series at Florida A&M University's Lee Hall Auditorium on Sunday afternoon. Haydn was the first to develop the string quartet as a genre (as opposed to a piece that happens to be written for two violins, viola, and cello), and his Quartet in G Major (Op. 76, No.1) is one of the genre's first masterpieces. The Parkers (violinists Daniel Chong and Karen Kim, violist Jessica Bodner, and cellist Kee-Hyun Kim) brought the piece's elegance and humor, playing with a light touch in the first three movements, with the second, slow movement marked by beautifully realized ensemble phrasing. The furious pace and aggression of the last movement revealed an overall arc to the piece in which the first three movements were foils for the last-in most music of Haydn's era much of the expressive content is front-loaded in the first movement. This interpretation was convincingly delivered, as the Parkers pushed the finale to the breaking point, but never beyond. Along with Dmitri Shostakovich and Elliott Carter, Bartók was one of the great quartet composers of the 20th century. His Fourth Quartet (he wrote six) contains many of the hallmarks of the composer's mature style-the folk-like melodies, dissonant tonal harmonies, driving rhythms, arch forms (where pieces have an odd number of movements and the central movement is in some ways the most important), and nocturnal slow movements. Sunday's performance was electrifying, with the playing distinguished by a rhythmic expressiveness and intensity that was now violent, now playful, and always right together. The third movement of the Quartet is a series of expressive solos over quietly shifting chords, and it gave each of the Parkers a chance to shine. The concert closed with an expansive performance of Beethoven's Quartet in Eb Major (Op. 127), one of the series of deeply searching and introspective quartets the composer wrote near the end of his life. The reading emphasized how the rhythmic details work with the work's large-scale structure to create the overall effect, and the Parker Quartet pulled it off beautifully. The Parker String Quartet is another reason to feel optimistic about concert music performance in the years to come.

Parker Quartet The Tallahassee Democrat  January 23, 2009

The Parker Quartet is busy making Beethoven hip BY MARK HINSON

More than 70 teenage music students sat quietly on the floor of the band room at Florida High on Wednesday afternoon while members of the visiting Parker Quartet blazed their way through a Beethoven scherzo. The players were met with enthusiastic applause when they finally scampered to a halt during the informal in-school recital. "The Beethoven piece was off the chain," senior and alto-sax player Desmond Thomas, 18, said after the music was over. "It sounded perfect. It was real cool." The Parker Quartet is hoping for a similar reaction when the foursome performs a public concert at FAMU on Sunday afternoon as part of the Artist Series season. The program features Beethoven's Quartet in E-flat Major, Opus 127, Bela Bartok's String Quartet No. 4 and Joseph Haydn's String Quartet in G Major, Opus 76. Haydn was also on the menu and the minds of Parker Quartet musicians during the Florida High stopover - one of many school visits the group made this week as part of an artist-in-residence program for the Artist Series. "You've probably heard of Mozart and Beethoven, but Haydn was Mozart and Beethoven's teacher," violinist Karen Kim told the students. "There are over 80 string quartets Haydn wrote. If you only remember one name from today, remember Haydn." The Parker Quartet formed seven years ago when Kim, violist Jessica Bodner, violinist Daniel Chong and cellist Kee- Hyun Kim met as students at the New England Conservatory in Boston. They took their name from Beantown's landmark Parker House Hotel. "That's where Parker rolls, Boston baked beans and Boston cream pies came from," Kee-Hyun Kim told the Florida High students, and that seemed to impress them almost as much as the Beethoven piece. During a question-and-answer session, students peppered the Parkers with queries that ranged from what modern groups were on quartet members' iPods (lots of Radiohead, by the way) to why Chong's 400-year-old violin has a transparent chin rest. "Oh, I got this in Paris because I thought it looked cool," Chong said. "It's really comfortable. It's made of the material they use to reconstruct bone." That, of course, brought an immediate chorus of "coooooollllll" from the kids. Speaking of kids . . . The Tallahassee Community Chorus is inviting the Swift Creek Middle School Chorus to add fresh vocal flavor to a performance of English composer John Rutter's Mass of the Children during this weekend's Unity Concert. Mass of the Children was first performed at Carnegie Hall in 2003 and dedicated to Rutter's young son, who was struck by a car and killed in 2001. Don't worry, the mass - which also incorporates a poem by William Blake -- is more inspirational than funereal.

Parker Quartet Tallahassee Democrat  January 23, 2009 page 2 of 2

The Unity Concert has been dubbed as "Our Tribute to Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" because Joanne Rogers, the widow of Public Television's beloved "Mister" Fred Rogers, will be a special guest at the show. Rogers also graduated from Florida State College of Music, where she studied with the renowned composer and professor Ernst von Dohnanyi. The music starts at 8 p.m. Saturday at Bradfordville First Baptist Church, 6494 Thomasville Road. FSU choral king Andre Thomas will conduct the Community Chorus and Mary Biddlecombe will direct the middle-schoolers. Soprano Nichole Nordschow and baritone Alexander Elliot will be the featured soloists.

PARKER QUARTET RECEIVES THE CLEVELAND QUARTET AWARD, LAUNCHES NEW WEBSITE

November 12, 2008 Chamber the Cleveland Quartet Award and Endowment Fund, which is man- Music America (CMA) announced to raise funds for the establishment aged by CMA. To learn more about today that the Parker Quartet has of the Cleveland Quartet Endow- Chamber Music America visit been selected to receive the Cleve- ment Fund. The first recipient was www.chamber-music.org. land Quartet Award. the Brentano String Quartet, and subsequent recipients were the The Cleveland Quartet Award will Established in 1995, the biennial Borromeo, Miami, Pacifica, Miró be presented on January 18, 2009, award honors and promotes a ris- and Jupiter quartets. at Chamber Music America’s Na- ing young string quartet whose tional Conference in New York City. artistry demon- The eight-venue strates that it is in performance tour the process of es- associated with tablishing a major the award will career. “Among take place during the many talent- the 2009-10 and ed string quartets 2010-2011 sea- performing today, sons. The present- the Parker Quartet ers are: Buffalo has shown extraor- Chamber Music dinary skill and Society (Buffalo, artistic maturity,” NY); Carnegie Hall said Margaret M. (New York, NY); Lioi, Chamber Mu- Chamber Music sic America’s chief Society of De- executive officer. troit (Detroit, MI); “It is our great Freer Gallery of pleasure to recog- Art at the Smith- nize them with the sonian, (Wash- Cleveland Quartet ington, D.C.); The Parker Quartet has launched a new website! Award for their Friends of Cham- The website includes audio and video, a Flickr photo stream, past achievements press information, a blog and full touring schedule. ber Music (Kansas as well as for the City, MO); Market exciting career http://www.parkerquartet.com Square Concerts that lies ahead.” (Harrisburg, PA); Krannert Center at History of the Award: The cre- The award is not a competition. the University of Illinois at Urbana- ation of a lasting legacy for young Nominations are submitted confi- Champaign (Urbana, IL); and the musicians was envisioned by the dentially to Chamber Music Amer- University of Texas at Austin (Aus- Cleveland Quartet in 1995, as ica (CMA) by a national roster of tin, TX). a culmination of its remarkable chamber musicians, presenters, twenty-six-year history. The quartet and educators. The winning string joined forces with Chamber Mu- quartet’s presentations and per- sic America and eight prominent formances are funded by income chamber music presenters to fund from the Cleveland Quartet Award ARTISTS

Parker Quartet Sydney Morning Herald  September 4, 2008

Selby and friends BY PETER McCALLUM

For those worried that the glorious heritage of European chamber music might have been starting to resemble the crumbling palaces of a bygone empire, the quality and number of new, young string quartets suggest it is premature to grieve (as Wordsworth put it) that even the shade of that which once was great has passed away.

Joining Kathryn Selby in her Friends series, the Parker Quartet from the United States is a welcome manifestation of this phenomenon. The players, in their mid-20s, play not only with the precision of intonation and ensemble which has become sine qua non for young groups (not always, alas, for older ones), but, more importantly, showed warmth and a sincere musical commitment and reverence.

To start, most in the audience listened to John Field’s Piano Quintet in A flat, H 34, with pleasure but without astonishment: the sound was warm but why shouldn’t it be in such a homely sentimental tune? The balance between this and the Chopinesque piano figuration from Selby was charming and quaint.

The performance of Gyorgy Ligeti’s String Quartet No. 2 (1968) reversed this for some, apparently bringing astonishment without pleasure, though on the whole the reception was strong. It was interesting to hear how well this high point of post-war avant-gardism had aged when played with this level of care. Far from sounding like dated experimentalism, the work kept tension alive through its textural inventiveness, and its tense dichotomy of still, sparsely spaced sounds, punctuated by explosive harshness which then decayed into scurrying murmurs.

Finishing the first half was a beautiful and tender performance of the slow movement of Samuel Barber’s String Quartet No.1, better known in its justly admired orchestral arrangement as the Adagio for Strings.

It was in Dvorak’s Piano Quintet, Opus 81, in the second half, however, that one started to know the individuals. Jessica Bodner on viola played the haunting second movement melody with beguiling simplicity and a glorious sound, while cellist Kee-Hyun Kim had a capacity to give the bass line direction, interest and tension, against which leader Daniel Chong and Karen Kim created a violin sound of incisive but coloured clarity.

Selby has chosen her friends well.

Parker String Quartet Washington Post  May 19, 2008

Borromeo Quartet's Whirlwind Weekend BY DANIEL GINSBERG

To attend the Borromeo String Quartet concerts at the Library of Congress over the weekend was to catch glimpses of chamber music's future. Dissolved was the image of churchly presentation of God-touched masterworks; one felt inserted into an airy, sunlit studio where artists struggle -- through skill, experimentation and work -- to define some deeply held yet amorphous vision. The idea was to squeeze into less than 24 hours an artistic residency that usually evolves over weeks. In concerts on Friday evening and Saturday afternoon, vivid readings of edgy contemporary pieces were paired with white-hot performances of tried-and-true warhorses. A Saturday morning workshop dealt with the mysteries of quartet playing; the session was filmed for the Web, one of the visit's several smart uses of technology. To underscore its teaching role at the New England Conservatory, the Borromeo shared the stage on Friday with the Parker Quartet, an exciting graduate-level ensemble at the Boston school. Playing with a delicacy and precision that belied the members' youthful looks, the Parker gave full form to Gyorgy Kurtag's "Six Moments Musicaux," Op. 44, each miniature arising like a bountiful universe. Two of the Parker members joined the Borromeo for an explosive reading of Tchaikovsky's "Souvenir de Florence," in which madly driving tempos and strongly drawn details sacrificed nothing in narrative flow. At the workshop, discussions centered on the myriad issues of articulation, balance and phrasing that arise in working up any masterpiece. The New England Conservatory Quartet -- a college-level ensemble working with the Borromeo -- performed in a nicely turned account of Haydn's Quartet Op. 76, No. 4 ("Sunrise"). The Parker read again through a few of the "Moments," and the Borromeo brought out the dancing ecstasy of Beethoven's "Holy Song of Thanksgiving," from Op. 132. The final concert was about string color and tone, as the Borromeo played the first movement of Beethoven's Quartet Op. 18, No. 3, on the library's priceless collection of Guarneri and Stradivarius instruments. Returning to its own instruments, the ensemble gave a blended, ruby-throated account of the complete work. The Parker closed out with Dvorak's flowing Quartet in E-flat, Op. 51; it went down like a well-deserved dessert after an intense, illuminating and ultimately enjoyable weekend.

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Parker Quartet Boston Globe ∙ April 13, 2008

Kurtag for Kids? Young listeners are ready for a challenge, says this quartet

BY JEREMY EICHLER

Because the Parker Quartet routinely plays for children, its members have learned a couple of important things. First, little kids never get the memo that says that classical music is for adults only. Second, they have wonderfully open ears and can respond to a vast range of music without prejudice.

Take for example the family concert that the quartet will play at Concord Chamber Music Society on April 20. It includes a few movements of Haydn, but it will also feature a series of "Moments Musicaux" by Gyorgy Kurtag, a contemporary Hungarian composer whose tense, volatile music may well give some parents pause when it appears on one of their own subscription concerts. Could this really be a good idea for kids?

"Definitely," says Karen Kim, one of the Parker violinists. "Kids have such a different perspective on music. They're so open to contemporary music and love being exposed to the different sounds that come about. And they have no problem whatsoever saying whatever they think."

At the heart of the Parker's program in Concord is a piece called "Aaponi's Destiny," written for them by composer Erik Jorgensen and described as a "Choose Your Own Adventure Musical Odyssey." The piece is about a mayfly given just one day to live, and the kids decide whether she should stay in the country or go to New York City to maybe catch an opera, drop by Central Park, or go to a ballgame, with the music of course tailored to their choices.

This sort of creative approach to children's programming seems typical of the Parker Quartet, a locally based ensemble whose members will soon be completing a graduate program at New England

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Parker Quartet The Boston Globe ∙ April 13, 2008 page 2 of 2

Conservatory and, armed with new management, will probably be leaving Boston to hazard its fortunes in the competitive world of professional string quartets. While still a graduate ensemble at NEC, the Parker has been making a name for itself both through traditional recitals but also with gigs in casual spaces like the Lizard Lounge in Cambridge and a Brooklyn bar called Barbes. The quartet gives its graduation recital in Jordan Hall on April 29.

While still in town, the group has recently been working with the German avant-garde composer Helmut Lachenmann, whose music is full of rasps, whispers, and nontraditional noise effects, but according to Kim, even this formidable fare goes down well on children's programs.

"When we play Lachenmann on a normal concert, we know there are going to be some unhappy audience members." she said. "But we just played it for some kids in Rockport. They loved it. They told us that it sounded like UFOs."

Parker Quartet New York Times ∙ September 18, 2007

Classical Works in a Bar’s Back Room

BY ALLAN KOZINN

It seemed simple enough to the naked eye: the Parker String Quartet was spending Sunday evening giving high-energy performances of Bartok and Ligeti works in the back room at Barbès, a bar in Park Slope, and a few dozen drink-nursing listeners — as many as the room could hold — packed in to hear them.

But other agendas were also at play. Concert Artists Guild, which runs the annual competition that this quartet won in 2005, and has traditionally managed its winners, is now retooling its approach. It is teaching its musicians to manage their own careers and is presenting them not only in standard programs but also at spaces like Barbès.

And the Parker Quartet, formed in 2002, when its members were students, is intent on reaching new audiences as it builds its career. The group has its own series at Barbès.

The Sunday concert, which opened its series, gave the players a chance to work through the thorny Ligeti scores they are recording next month for Naxos. But they opened the program with the first movement of the Bartok Third Quartet, as an overture of sorts, a glimpse of Ligeti’s roots in Hungarian modernism. The points of contact are chromatic density and a penchant for sudden shifts between eerie, harmonically vague atmospherics and explosive bursts of solid, sharp-edged chords.

The Parker Quartet is equally persuasive at both extremes: in the Bartok movement and in Ligeti’s two full-fledged quartets, these musicians brought considerable warmth and richness of tone to sweetly accented themes and gentle chordal writing, and unbridled textural brashness to the more volatile passages.

By including the early Andante and Allegretto (1950), they gave a sense of Ligeti’s compositional journey — or at least as much of it as the quartets represent. With their regular rhythms and thematic charm, the Andante and Allegretto are rooted in Viennese Classicism. The First Quartet (1954) breaks away, taking Bartok’s acerbic harmonic language as a starting point, and magnifying it. And the Second Quartet (1968), with its fleet, swirling, harmonically ambiguous pianissimo figures and pizzicato polyrhythms, evokes the Ligeti of “Lux Aeterna” and “Atmosphères.

The informality of the concert apparently demanded a chattiness that didn’t always serve the music. Stopping the Ligeti Second Quartet after each movement for a meandering introduction, for example, seemed needless. And asserting that Ligeti performances have been plentiful only since his death last year left the impression that these players haven’t paid attention to concert programs other than their own.

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Parker Quartet New York Times ∙ September 18, 2007 page 2 of 2

Still, there was a lot to be said for the friendly, even jovial give-and-take between musicians and audience. And for the listeners, no doubt the visceral thrill of hearing such intense music making in such a tiny space is part of the draw. This is as close as you’re going to get to a quartet in full flight without playing in one.

Parker Quartet Time Out New York ∙ January 4, 2007

A Holiday for Strings

BY BRIAN WISE

A string quartet walks into a bar.… It might sound like the setup for a bad joke, but it’s a reality for a pair of young quartets taking the stage in New York this month. The Chiara String Quartet, after more than five years of playing at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, will be devoting a significant part of its 2007 schedule performing in bars and clubs that normally feature folk, bluegrass and experimental music. And the Parker String Quartet—whose members are graduate students at Boston’s New England Conservatory—recently rented a van and toured nightclubs up and down the East Coast. This summer it will begin a residency at Park Slope club Barbès.

Most quartets measure success one plush concert hall at a time; a club is a one-off novelty at best. But both the Chiara and the Parker contend that permitting listeners to relax with a beer or cocktail can attract people in their twenties and thirties, who might find traditional venues alienating. “This gives us a chance to reach audiences our age who might like classical music, but find the experience of going to hear it unfamiliar,” says Karen Kim, a violinist in the Parker Quartet, which will play a more conventional booking at the Walter Reade Theater January 28. “Many people our age aren’t used Photo: Janette Beckmann to the formality of the concert hall, and they can’t always afford the ticket prices.

Although members of both quartets report that the crowds at bars are on average half the age of traditional concertgoers, such venues are also foreign territory for classical music. Acoustics in even the most music-friendly clubs aren’t always accommodating, forcing the groups to use amplification. Few bars pay as well as traditional concert halls, and luxuries such as a dressing room are often nonexistent. But both the Chiara and Parker are eager to adapt to the atmosphere, and typically adjust their programming to suit the space.

Both groups are surprised by what pieces work in a bar. Quiet, delicate works are generally avoided, but modernist fare can do well. The Parker often plays the third of Webern’s Five Movements, a short, bristling 12-tone work, while the Chiara has found success with the middle movement of Bartok’s thorny String Quartet No. 2. The quartets will also craft set lists on the day of a performance—a practice unheard of in traditional halls, which send out brochures advertising their programs months in advance.

The idea of breaking through to alternative audiences has even affected the way these quartets market themselves. The Chiara recently launched a page on MySpace.com featuring audio clips and tour updates, and now mans a merchandise table at concerts. Meanwhile, the Parker regularly shares double bills with pop acts to divide costs and maximize exposure. Last fall, the quartet toured with Wynn Walent, a local singer-songwriter; this winter it has appeared with the Boston Afrobeat Society.

Both ensembles acknowledge that even in the most flexible nightspot, things can go awry. Parker Quartet violinist Daniel Chong recalls the time a tipsy patron knocked over his music stand during a Mozart quartet. Still, he notes, club audiences are surprisingly attentive. “Even if the bar’s really rowdy when we first walk in,” he says, “it is amazing how quiet it can get, and how intently people are listening.”

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Parker Quartet Boston Globe ∙ December 7, 2006

Change of Venue is Music to their Ears

BY JEREMY EICHLER

On Tuesday night, I attended two richly satisfying concerts without stepping foot in a concert hall. The first was a new music program presented by the Boston Modern Orchestra Project at the Moonshine Room of the popular Club Cafe in the South End; the second was a performance by the up- and-coming Parker String Quartet in the Lizard Lounge, a low-slung basement club space in Cambridge. Next month, the Firebird Ensemble will perform in a local barbecue joint.

What is classical music doing in these spaces? It may sound quirky or even perverse, but it is in fact an excellent idea and a growing trend. Of course Symphony Hall and Jordan Hall are in no risk of losing their core constituencies, but they may well stand to gain some listeners if this practice continues.

At 10 p.m., about an hour after the BMOP program ended, I was being handed a wristband at the Lizard Lounge in Cambridge, and the Parker Quartet, an ensemble of graduate students at New England Conservatory who have already gained impressive notice, were setting up beneath a pink disco ball suspended from the ceiling. First violinist Daniel Chong grabbed a mike and welcomed the crowd, admitting this was the largest young audience they had ever had at a concert.

Indeed, the players in this impressively talented quartet are in their early to mid-20s. It is a sad fact that students choosing a career in classical music today by and large do not get to perform for members of their own generation. Friends might show up to support you at a concert, but they are generally more likely to be found at places, well, like the Lizard Lounge.

It was refreshing to see the Parkers play through some of their repertoire -- movements of works by Schumann, Mozart, Ligeti, Shostakovich, Ravel -- in this setting. After the quartet blazed through a Scherzo from Schumann's A-minor quartet, a guy in the corner with a beer offered a spontaneous shout of "Awesome!" The cellist Kee-Hyun Kim later drew some laughs from the crowd when he introduced the final Haydn work by announcing they were going to "kick it old school."

But beyond the alternative space and the banter with the audience, what distinguished the Parkers' set was their fiercely committed performances. They conveyed an appealing sense of urgency in Ravel's Quartet, and brought out the rugged extraterrestrial beauty of Ligeti's First Quartet. These qualities come through all the more strongly in such an intimate venue. If you had closed your eyes during many parts of the set, the biggest difference from what you might hear in a concert hall was the rapt silence. There were no coughs, no cellphones.

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Parker Quartet The Boston Globe ∙ December 7, 2006 page 2 of 2

Alternative spaces are not a panacea -- there can be obvious logistical problems, bad PA systems, obnoxious or indifferent crowds, and myriad other challenges -- but they are spicing up the scene while allowing, at times, for a rare directness of connection with both new audiences and traditional ones. Ultimately, the battle for the next generation of listeners should be won or lost based on the quality of the music being offered and the persuasiveness of the performances. Sometimes this requires slicing through the traditional packaging that, when viewed from the outside, can too often be mistaken for the concert experience itself.

Parker Quartet The News-Times ∙ October 27, 2006

Young audience warms up to quartet

BY JAN STRIBULA

NEWTOWN – Scores of eighth grade students were immersed in chamber music at the Edmond Town Hall on Sunday afternoon, attentively listening to the Parker String Quartet. Newtown Friends of Music helped them get ready for a school outreach program to be held on Monday at Newtown Middle School. By the end of the performance, I think every one had an ear-stretching lesson in music appreciation.

Students themselves, the members of the Parker String Quartet attend The New England Conservatory, where they are their critically acclaimed graduate quartet in residence. The young masters are violinists Daniel Chong and Karen Kim, violist Jessica Bodner, and cellist Kee-Hyun Kim. Each of them, in their own right, is an accomplished musician, and they combine to form a vibrant expressive ensemble.

Still celebrating his 250th birthday, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) gave us his “String Quartet in G Major, K.387” when he was 26 years old. Kim’s cello sounded quite cheerful in the light hearted Allegro Vivace assai movement. Clear contrapuntal accents marked the Menuetto, with lots of body language, especially from violinist Kim. The members of the quartet were paying close attention as they accompanied each other, reacting in unison to what was going on.

The adventurous contemporary composer Gyorgy Ligeti (1923-2006) may be best known for pieces used in soundtracks for Stanley Kubrick movies, like “2001, A Space Odyssey.” His unusual “String Quartet No.1: Metamorphoses nocturnes” used sudden changes in rhythmic patterns, converging and diverging tonalities. A host of eerie audio emanations with flashes of brightness created a sense of intensity in the night.

Certainly not standard listening material familiar to the mind’s ear. I’m not quite sure what to make of the music. But the Parker String Quartet performed the piece with the sense that they’ve taken this voyage with Ligeti before and knew just where they were going. Chong’s violin acrobatics were out of this world. Similar to Kubrick’s “2001”, there seems to be quite a story to be told, once it’s understood, but it’s by no means transparent on first exposure.

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Parker Quartet Times Union ∙ November 4, 2006

Young players bring a classical repertoire

BY JOSEPH DALTON

SCHENECTADY … The Parker String Quartet, a young, award-winning ensemble from New York, showed itself in a variety of guises during its Friday evening performance at Union College’s Memorial Chapel. They gave a come-hither daintiness to Mozart, and let loose some giddy-up-let’s-go revelry in Schumann.

And then there was the encore … one movement from Webern’s Five Pieces for String Quartet. Taut, shrill and creepy, it was no more than 30 seconds long. Perhaps it was offered as a delayed Halloween treat.

There was also a grander foray into modernism, Gyorgy Ligeti’s Quartet No. 1 “Metamorphosis Nocturnes,” which began with a hair-raising, almost violent intensity. A 20-minute stream of uninterrupted character pieces, it included a ghoulish secretive dialogue, a rollicking chase scene, a pungent hesitation waltz, and much more. No wonder that choreographer Christopher Wheeldon chose it for his 2002 dance for New York City Ballet titled “Morphoses.”

The 1954 piece felt very right for the young players. It may not be actual music of their time, but it’s music of their age … Ligeti wrote it while in his late 20s. What’s more is that the Parker conveyed it convincingly enough to win over the sometimes-squeamish audience. When people stand to applaud before intermission you know something worked.

The vibrancy of the Ligeti came as a welcome departure from the quartet’s rather tentative touch with Mozart’s String Quartet in G major, K.387, which opened the program. The sound was remote, though there was nuance in every phrase. Also, the dominant tempos were lively, allowing for some playful personality to come through, especially from the soulful cello of Kee-Hyun Kim. It was like realizing that being served tea and cookies on fine china and lace doilies didn’t preclude also having a mirthful conversation.

The program concluded with something mainstream and full voiced, Schumann’s String Quartet in A minor, Op. 41, No. 1. The themes of the opening movement were not just pastoral but country, as if, for just a moment, the piece might go off into fiddle playing. One brief phrase in the finale actually sounded like an Irish reel.

Best of all was the Scherzo. It had a gallop, in both melody and tempo, and was over far too quickly.

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Parker Quartet New York Times ∙ November 17, 2005

High Drama via Beethoven and Bartok

BY ALLAN KOZINN

Superb string quartets are plentiful at the moment. But even so, the performance that the Parker String Quartet gave on Tuesday evening at Weill Recital Hall set the group apart as something extraordinary.

It was clear from the program's opening bars - those of Beethoven's Quartet in E minor (Op. 59, No. 2) - that these musicians were determined to keep their phrasing incisive and their textures transparent. This was Beethoven as high drama, couched in a sound with an unusual presence, depth and warmth, and pushed to its emotional limits. And the players maintained those characteristics - with some tweaking to suit the music at hand - in a rigorous program that also included recent work by Gyorgy Kurtag and Bartok's Fifth Quartet.

What is all the more striking about the group's sound is that the players have achieved it in fairly short order. The violinists Daniel Chong and Karen Kim, the violist Jessica Bodner and the cellist Kee- Hyun Kim banded together in 2002 as students at the New England Conservatory. This year, they won the Bordeaux International String Quartet Competition as well as the Concert Artist Guild Competition.

The concert, part of the Concert Artists Guild's series, was the quartet's New York debut. But the group brought a souvenir of its visit to Bordeaux as well. Mr. Kurtag's "Six Moments Musicaux Dédies à Mon Fils" (Op. 44) was written as a test piece for the Bordeaux competition, and it certainly gives a quartet a workout. Its six movements are varied in shape and texture, but most are spiky to an almost visual degree, with bursts of angularity offset by passages that range from the dark and tentative to the pointillistic and high-spirited.

The group closed with a live-wire account of Bartok's difficult Fifth Quartet. Passages that demand ensemble precision were flawlessly balanced, perfectly tuned and sheathed in lustrous textures. Even the sections where Bartok asks for deliberately off-pitch playing, or sliding between pitches, moved with a fluidity that kept the music's currents of anxiety, tension and resolution fully in the spotlight. They played this work as the perfect modernist counterpart to the Beethoven.

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Parker Quartet Washington Post ∙ January 25, 2005

A Splash of Color at the Phillips

BY JOAN REINTHALER

It is early in their career and the info on the members of the Parker Quartet has more to say about who they've studied with (the Cleveland Quartet, the Emerson, the Tokyo and the Takacs) than about where they have played. But if their performance at the Phillips Collection on Sunday is anything to go by, this is a quartet that deserves close attention.

First of all, they already have a distinctive personality. It's characterized by an ensemble that does not sound like an end in itself but, rather, like the result of a focus on the shape, color and weight of each individual line. Their sound is, at the same time, big and subtle. They propel the music irresistibly but with extraordinary grace and flexibility and, above all, they make sense of the music.

Their program was the sort that a young group might take on – the Bartok String Quartet No. 2, the Beethoven Op. 59, No. 2, and, to begin with, the powerful and well-crafted “Nightfields I-II-III”; by Joan Tower. They are all big, energetic and technically demanding pieces that an ensemble can make a splash with just by getting through them athletically. What was most impressive about this performance, however, was that virtuosity never seemed to hold the spotlight. Instead it was Bartok's passion and introspection, Beethoven's astonishing moodiness and the fine-tuning of Tower's play on timbres that were projected with energy, and the exhilaration of a risk well taken.

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Parker Quartet The Strad

FEBRUARY 2006

The Parker Quartet gave the New York premiere of Kurtág’s Moments musicaux at its own New York debut in Weill Recital Hall (15 November). And although they had only had the parts for six months, these young musicians gave a finely nuanced and deeply felt performance. The Parker’s Beethoven (op.59 no.2) was well characterized, too, and exciting from start to finish. The quartet has a tendency to rush in fast passages, and its playing can be more expressive in forte than in piano, but I’m guessing these issues will sort themselves out. I had no reservations whatsoever about its Bartók Fifth Quartet, which was ferocious yet controlled. The Parker never used force; the players always let the music speak – thrillingly – for itself.

APRIL 2007

Earlier that day, the Parker Quartet played Haydn, Webern and Ravel with immensely pleasurable tonal and stylistic sophistication. Haydn's 'Rider' opened the ensembles matinee program at Lincoln Center's Walter Reade Theater (29 January). It and Webern's Five Movements op.5 were fully realised on the player's own terms, and it was fascinating to hear the connections between those two Austrian masterpieces. Ravel's Quartet in F major, although as immaculately played as the other works, did not possess the full measure of Gallic style and sound; however, the group's conception was so clearly in the right direction that attainment must be merely a matter of time.

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