Tokyo kicks off UCSD's Chamber Music Series

October 23, 1986

Media contact: Ruth Baily, University Events Office, 534-4090 or Alixandra Williams, Public Information Office, 534-3120

Into its 16th year of performance, the distinguished will kick off the 1986-87 UCSD Chamber Music Series at 8 p.m., Saturday, Nov. 15, in the Mandeville Center Auditorium at the University of California, San Diego.

Fresh from a month-long tour of European summer music festivals, the Tokyo String Quartet is focusing on a Beethoven cycle, while still including Mendelssohn, Haydn and Mozart in its repertoire.

The Nov. 15 program will include Haydn: Quartet in C Major, Op. 74, No. 1; Mendelssohn: Quartet No. 2 in A minor, Op. 13; and Beethoven: Quartet No. 13 in B-flat Major, Op. 130 with "Grosse Fuge" Op. 133.

To celebrate its 16th anniversary, this relatively young ensemble has played two European/Asian tours, which included a six-concert appearance in Paris and appearances in Finland, and other Eastern countries.

The quartet plays on four exquisite instruments created between 1656 and 1677 by the Italian Luthier Nicolo Amati, and loaned to them by the Corcoran Gallery of Art.

The highly skilled ensemble members have produced a first-rate collection of recorded works. Among them, The Haydn Quartet in G Major, Opus 76, No. 1 (presented in the Nov. 15 program). This recording was their debut disc, winning a Grand Prix du Disque de Montreux award. The quartet recorded all six of the Opus 76 quartets for CBS in the early 80s, which William Youngren, critic for Fanfare magazine, called one of the year's best recordings.

The Tokyo's recording of Bartok's six string quartets earned a Grammy nomination and has been ranked as first choice in this music by the Penguin Guide. The group's recording of Haydn's six quartets Opus 50 earned a rosette from the Penguin Guide, the magazine's highest award. The group's only recording of Mozart quartets is a pairing of the Dissonant and the Prussian quartets. The Penguin Guide says, "The playing of the youthful Tokyo offers here a real challenge to the refinement and experience of the ."

Members of the quartet are: Peter Oundjian, Kikuei Ikeda, Kazuhide Isomura and Sadao Harada. Oundjian, violinist, is a native of Toronto. He began his studies at the age of seven, in London. Winner of the Gold Medal at the Royal College of Music in London, he came to Juilliard in 1975 to study with Ivan Galamian, with Itzhak Perlman, Dorothy DeLay and members of the Juilliard Quartet. Six years ago, Oundjian won first prize in the International Violin Competition in Viria del Mar, Chile.

Ikeda, violinist and award-winning soloist, was born in Tokyo and studied violin at the Toho Academy of Music with Saburo Sumi and Josef Gingold, and chamber music with Hideo Saito. He has performed as soloist with the Yomiuri Symphony, Tokyo Metropolitan and Tokyo Symphony orchestras. Ikeda came to the United States in 1971, studying with Dorothy DeLay and with members of the Juilliard Quartet. Isomura, violist, and a graduate of Toho Academy, has studied with Jeanne Isnard and Kenji Kobayashi, and chamber with Hideo Saito. In the U.S., he became assistant concertmaster of the Nashville Symphony, and later studied violin at Juilliard with Ivan Galamian and Paul Makanowitzky. Isomura is a founding member of the Tokyo Quartet.

Harada, cellist and founding member, began his studies with his father, and continued with Hideo Saito. A graduate of the Toho Academy, Harada won first prize at the Mainichi lusic Concourse. After serving as principal cellist for the Tokyo Symphony, he became first cellist with the Nashville Symphony, and later pursued his studies at Juilliard with Claus Adam, Robert Mann and Raphael Hillyer.

Tickets for the UCSD Chamber Music Series are $55; single tickets are $17, and will be issued in November (if available). The Chamber Music Series is sponsored by the University Events Office. For information, call the UCSD Box Office at 534-4559.

(October 23, 1986)