Peak Performances' All Terrain String Festival
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Press Contact: Blake Zidell Blake Zidell & Associates 718.643.9052 [email protected] For Immediate Release Updated February 13, 2017 PEAK PERFORMANCES’ ALL TERRAIN STRING FESTIVAL: BOLCOM 4x4 PAYS TRIBUTE TO COMPOSER WILLIAM BOLCOM, MARCH 31 – APRIL 2 Festival Celebrating String Quartet Composition and Performance Will Feature Arditti Quartet, Chiara String Quartet, Harlem Quartet and Shanghai Quartet, and Acclaimed Guest Artists Including Jazz Bassist John Patitucci and Classical Guitarist Eliot Fisk Program Includes the World Premiere of Bolcom’s String Quartet No. 12, by Shanghai Quartet, and the New York / New Jersey Premiere of His String Quartet No. 8, by Arditti Quartet, as well as a Genre-Spanning Range of Classic and Contemporary Music Shanghai Quartet, Ensemble-in-Residence at John J. Cali School of Music at Montclair State University, Will Join the Other Featured Quartets, in Addition to Headlining a Concert of Their Own Peak Performances presents All Terrain String Festival: Bolcom 4x4 Featuring Arditti Quartet, Chiara String Quartet, Harlem Quartet and Shanghai Quartet March 31 – April 2 The Alexander Kasser Theater at Montclair State University (1 Normal Ave, Montclair, NJ) Ticket Prices: $20 per concert; Saturday Pass (two concerts and Mingle with the Musicians Dinner), $60; All-Festival Pass, $90 To Purchase: www.peakperfs.org or 973.655.5112 Peak Performances is pleased to present All Terrain String Festival: Bolcom 4x4, a three-day festival in which four of the world’s foremost string quartets will perform the work of prolific Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer William Bolcom, along with music by a wide variety of other composers, from Mozart to Dizzy Gillespie. The Arditti Quartet, Chiara String Quartet, Harlem Quartet and Shanghai Quartet, joined by virtuoso guest artists including jazz bassist John Patitucci and classical guitarist Eliot Fisk, will perform March 31 – April 2 at the Alexander Kasser Theater at Montclair State University. Shanghai Quartet, ensemble-in-residence at the University’s John J. Cali School of Music, will perform with each of the other three quartets, as well as headline their own festival-concluding concert. Peak Performances Executive Director Jedediah Wheeler conceived the All Terrain String Festival to celebrate the richness and range of the string quartet landscape. The festival is remarkably broad not only in its lineup, but also in the program of music comprising each concert. It opens, on March 31, with the Harlem Quartet, which aims to advance diversity in classical music, in part by performing works by minority composers in multiple genres. At the Kasser Theater they will play compositions by Latin Americans Rafael Hernández Marín and Abelardo Valdés, as well as by Mozart, Dizzy Gillespie and Bolcom. The Chiara String Quartet, which The New York Times has described as “remarkable…fresh and vital,” and which specializes in premiering works by contemporary composers, will play two such works—by Jefferson Friedman and Gabriela Lena Frank, who studied with Bolcom—from memory, as well as Bolcom’s Octet: Double Quartet, for which the Shanghai Quartet will join them, April 1 at 5pm. At 8pm that night, the Arditti Quartet, praised for “awesome intensity” and “utter technical command” by The New York Times and for its “astonishing virtuosity and bravery” by The Los Angeles Times, will perform the New York / New Jersey premieres of Bolcom’s String Quartet no. 8 and, with guitarist Eliot Fisk, Hilda Paredes’ Son dementes cuerdas. They will also play Elliott Carter’s String Quartet no. 5, joined by the Shanghai Quartet, and Chaya Czernowin’s Anea Crystal: Anea. The festival will conclude with a concert by the “superb” (The Boston Globe) Shanghai Quartet, April 2 at 3pm. In addition to Dvořák’s String Quartet no. 14 in A-Flat Major, op. 105, B. 193 and award-winning Chinese-American composer Zhou Long’s Poems from Tang, the ensemble will give the world premiere performance of Bolcom’s String Quartet no. 12, commissioned by Peak Performances. Shanghai Quartet has been ensemble-in-residence at the John J. Cali School of Music at Montclair State University since 2002. In advance of the All Terrain String Festival, they will perform the Dvořák String Quartet no 14 in a Chamber Music Society (CMS) of Lincoln Center concert at Alice Tully Hall, on February 7. Peak Performances, with the University of Richmond, also commissioned another piece in the CMS concert, Penderecki’s String Quartet no. 3: Leaves from an Unwritten Diary, which made its U.S. premiere at the Kasser in 2009. Peak Performances has commissioned several other pieces of music for Shanghai Quartet, including Du Yun’s Tattooed in Snow, which made its world premiere at the Kasser Theater in 2015; and, with La Jolla Music Society, David Del Tredici’s Bullycide (with Orion Weiss, piano and DaXun Zhang, double bass), which made its Northeast Premiere at the Kasser Theater in 2014. All Terrain String Festival: Bolcom 4x4 coincides with the recent publication, by Edward B. Marks Music Company, of six of Bolcom’s early string quartets. As Ronni Reich writes in an essay for the festival program, “While his string quartets are not his best-known works, they form a musical autobiography, spanning Bolcom’s career from age 11 to 78.” Bolcom tells Reich, “I tend to ask performers to do what I know I can’t do. If I had my druthers, I would be a string quartet. I’d be an 8-armed, 4- playered entity. Bolcom is a National Medal of Arts-winning American composer of chamber, operatic, vocal, choral, cabaret, ragtime and symphonic music. Anthony Tommasini of The New York Times calls him “a master musician of wide-ranging tastes and skills” who creates “beguiling music.” Bolcom was a member of the faculty of the University of Michigan’s School of Music from 1973 until his retirement in 2008. He won the Pulitzer Prize for music in 1988 for 12 New Etudes for Piano, and his setting of William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and of Experience, on the Naxos label, won four Grammy Awards in 2006. As a pianist he has performed and recorded his own work, frequently in collaboration with his wife and musical partner, mezzo- soprano Joan Morris. White Pine Records recently released their 25th album, Autumn Leaves. Peter Robles of Serious Music Media has served as Program Consultant for All Terrain String Festival: Bolcom 4x4. ALL TERRAIN STRING FESTIVAL: BOLCOM 4x4 - PROGRAM OF EVENTS Friday, March 31 7:30pm Harlem Quartet Tickets: $20 Running Time: 90 minutes, including one intermission What distinguishes the Harlem Quartet are superb musicianship, a genre-bending repertoire and a mission to advance diversity in classical music and engage new audiences with works by minority composers. This versatile ensemble easily transitions from classical music to jazzier fare. Its virtuosity and range are on full display in this program of works including “The Hunt,” from Mozart’s String Quartet no. 17 in B-flat Major, K.458; Bolcom’s Three Rags for String Quartet; jazz legend Dizzy Gillespie’s A Night in Tunisia; Latin American composers Rafael Hernández Marín’s El Cumbanchero and Abelardo Valdés’ Almendra; and contemporary music giant Osvaldo Golijov’s Last Round, a grand finale in which the Harlem Quartet will be joined by the Shanghai Quartet and legendary jazz bassist John Patitucci. The Harlem Quartet has received praise for its “panache” from The New York Times and for “bringing a new attitude to classical music, one that is fresh, bracing and intelligent,” from The Cincinnati Enquirer. Since its 2006 debut at Carnegie Hall, the New York-based ensemble has performed throughout the U.S., the U.K., France, Belgium, Panama, Canada and in South Africa under the auspices of the U.S. State Department. The Quartet completed the Professional String Quartet Residency Program at New England Conservatory and participated in its exchange program in Paris, working extensively with violinist Günter Pichler. The Harlem Quartet has collaborated with Itzhak Perlman, Ida Kavafian, Carter Brey, Paul Katz, Fred Sherry, Anthony McGill, Paquito D’Rivera and Misha Dichter, and with jazz legends Chick Corea and Gary Burton on their Grammy Award- winning album Hot House. The ensemble has performed for the Obamas at the White House and been featured on WNBC, CNN, NBC’s “Today Show,” WQXR-FM, and PBS’ “Newshour.” The Harlem Quartet is: Ilmar Gavilán and Melissa White (violins), Jaime Amador (viola) and Felix Umansky (cello). The Shanghai Quartet, ensemble-in-residence at the John J. Cali School of Music at Montclair State University, has an international reputation for superb musicianship, championing new music, and juxtaposing traditions of Eastern and Western music. The Quartet collaborates with the most distinguished artists around the globe and regularly tours the major music centers of Europe, North America and Asia. Recent festival performances range from the International Music Festivals of Seoul and Beijing to the Festival Pablo Casals in France, Beethoven Festival in Poland, Yerevan Festival in Armenia and the Cartagena International Music Festival in Colombia. The Quartet has appeared at Carnegie Hall in chamber performances and with orchestra, and has collaborated with noted artists from Yo-Yo Ma to Menahem Pressler, and from pipa virtuosa Wu Man to the male vocal ensemble Chanticleer. The ensemble has premiered many important new works, including David Del Tredici’s Bullycide and Penderecki’s String Quartet no. 3: Leaves from an Unwritten Diary. Shanghai Quartet is: Weigang Li and Yi-Wen Jiang (violins), Honggang Li (viola) and Nicholas Tzavaras (cello). Legendary bassist and three-time Grammy Award-winner John Patitucci has performed throughout the world with his own band and with jazz luminaries Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Stan Getz, Pat Matheny, Wynton Marsalis, Joshua Redman, Nancy Wilson and many others.