Emerson String Quartet
with Jeffrey Kahane

Eugene Drucker, violin
Philip Setzer, violin
Lawrence Dutton, viola
David Finckel, cello
Jeffrey Kahane, piano

Program:
Haydn: Seven Last Words, op. 51, H.III:50-56
Brahms: Quintet in F minor for piano and strings, Op. 34

Web Address:
www.emersonquartet.com

“The Emerson has the traditional string-quartet virtues; each player is a strongly characterized individual, but the ensemble is temperamentally as well a sonically in balance.”
– The New Yorker

Acclaimed for its insightful and dynamic performances, brilliant artistry and technical mastery, the Emerson String Quartet is one of the world's foremost chamber ensembles. The Quartet has amassed an impressive list of achievements: an exclusive Universal Classics/Deutsche Grammophon recording contract, four Grammy Awards, regular appearances with virtually every chamber music series and festival worldwide, and an international reputation as a quartet that approaches both the classics and contemporary music with equal mastery and enthusiasm. For nearly a quarter of a century, the ensemble has collaborated with numerous artists, including Emanuel Ax, Misha Dichter, Leon Fleisher, the Guarneri String Quartet, Thomas Hampson, Lynn Harrell, Barbara Hendricks, the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio, Menahem Pressler, Mstislav Rostropovich, Oscar Shumsky, David Shifrin and Richard Stoltzman.

In 2000, the members of the Emerson String Quartet celebrated their 20th year as faculty at the University of Hartford's Hartt School of Music, where they have inaugurated a special training program for young quartets. For nearly 25 years, the Emerson has had an annual series at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. Committed to teaching the nation's most talented music students, the ensemble will perform or give master classes at a host of universities and conservatories across the country.

The Quartet recently performed the complete cycle of Shostakovich quartets in a critically acclaimed five-concert series presented at New York's Alice Tully Hall, as well as Wigmore Hall and the Barbican Centre in London. The theatrical nature of these extraordinary masterpieces and their powerful effect on audiences led the Emerson to record them live during three summers of performances at the Aspen Music Festival. Meticulous editing eliminated virtually all background noise, and the recording, on the Deutsche Grammophon label, has been praised for the intensity and energy of the performances. The Quartet also collaborated with renowned director Simon McBurney (Street of Crocodiles, The Chairs) in an innovative theatrical piece featuring Shostakovich's 15th Quartet. Blending film, choreography, taped readings and live music by the Emerson Quartet, the multimedia work, entitled "The Noise of Time," captured the essence of this haunted composer and his music. Future performances are planned for London's Barbican Centre, the Moscow Festival, Berliner Festspiele, Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., Massachusetts International Festival and the Krannert Center in Champagne-Urbana.

Another ongoing program of interest is the Quartet's unique collaboration with acclaimed physicist and author Brian Greene (The Elegant Universe). Dr. Greene and the ensemble demonstrate the principles of String Theory through lecture, video presentation and performances of important musical works that illustrate or coincide with major developments in the history of physics. 

In 1987, the Emerson signed an exclusive recording contract with Deutsche Grammophon; its first release on the label was Schubert's Quartet in D minor, D. 810 "Death and the Maiden." The Quartet attracted national attention in 1988 with the presentation of the six Bartók quartets in a single evening for their Carnegie Hall debut; the ensemble's subsequent recording of the cycle received a 1989 Grammy Award for "Best Classical Album" and Gramophone Magazine's 1989 "Record of the Year Award" - the first time in the history of each award that a chamber music ensemble had ever received the top prize. The recording also received a second Grammy Award for "Best Chamber Music Performance."

Additional discs on the Deutsche Grammophon label include quartets by Schumann, Dvorák, Prokofiev, Barber and Ives, the Schubert Cello Quintet with Mstislav Rostropovich, the Schumann Piano Quintet and Quartet with Menahem Pressler, the Grammy-nominated Dvorák Piano Quintet and Quartet with Pressler, the Grammy-nominated complete string works of Anton Webern, and Samuel Barber's Dover Beach with baritone Thomas Hampson. In 1994, the Emerson won its third Grammy Award for "Best Chamber Music Recording" with a disc of American Originals - quartet repertoire of Ives and Barber.

In March 1997, the Emerson String Quartet released a seven-CD box set of the complete quartets of Ludwig van Beethoven, an ambitious project that earned the ensemble its fourth Grammy award for "Best Chamber Music Recording." A disc of Edgar Meyer's Bass Quintet paired with Ned Rorem's String Quartet was released in March 1998, and the Quartet's most recent recording, the complete string quartets of Dmitri Shostakovich, was released in January 2000.

Dedicated to the performance of the classical repertoire, the Emerson String Quartet also has a strong commitment to the commissioning and performance of 20th-century music. Important commissions and premieres include compositions by Ellen Taaffe Zwillich (1998), Edgar Meyer (1995), Ned Rorem (1995), Paul Epstein (1994), Wolfgang Rihm (1993), Richard Wernick (1991), Richard Danielpour (1988), John Harbison (1987), Gunther Schuller (1986), George Tsontakis (1984), Maurice Wright (1983), Ronald Caltabiano (1981), and Mario Davidovsky (1979). In Fall 2001, the Quartet will premiere a quartet concerto by Wolfgang Rihm with the Cleveland Orchestra and Christoph von Dohnanyi.

Formed in the Bicentennial year of the United States, the Emerson String Quartet took its name from the great American poet and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson. Violinists Eugene Drucker and Philip Setzer alternate in the first chair position, and are joined by violist Lawrence Dutton and cellist David Finckel. The Quartet has performed numerous benefit concerts for causes ranging from nuclear disarmament to the fight against AIDS, world hunger and children's diseases. The ensemble's members were honored by the governor of Connecticut for their outstanding cultural contributions to the state and in 1994 received the University Medal for Distinguished Service from the University of Hartford. In 1995, each member was awarded an honorary doctoral degree by Middlebury College in Vermont. They have also received a Smithson Award from the Smithsonian Institution.

The Emerson String Quartet has been featured in The New York Times Magazine, USA Today, Elle, Bon Appetit, The Strad, and Strings. Television appearances include PBS's "NewsHour with Jim Lehrer," WNET's "City Arts" and A&E's Biography of Beethoven. The ensemble has been the subject of two award-winning films: the nationally televised WETA-TV Production "In Residence at the Renwick" (Emmy Award for Excellence, 1983), and "Making Music: The Emerson String Quartet" (First Place for Music, National Education Film Festival, 1985). The Quartet is based in New York City.

Jeffrey Kahane, piano

Equally at home at the keyboard and on the podium, Jeffrey Kahane is one of the few gifted performers to excel both as a soloist and as a conductor. A versatile musician, Mr. Kahane has mastered diverse repertoire ranging from Bach to Gershwin and his performances include an astonishing mixture of passion, intelligence, and technique. This unique combination has brought Mr. Kahane an array of prestigious awards, and has made him one of the most celebrated and sought-after musicians of his generation.

Mr. Kahane made his Carnegie Hall debut in 1983 under the auspices of the America Israel Cultural Foundation in a special concert tribute to Artur Rubinstein. Since that time, he has given recitals in many of the nation's great concert halls including New York, Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Atlanta. As a collaborator, Mr. Kahane regularly appears with leading chamber ensembles and has toured in duo recitals with Yo-Yo Ma, Dawn Upshaw and Joshua Bell. He is frequently heard at summer festivals including Caramoor, Ravinia, Mostly Mozart, Blossom, the Hollywood Bowl, and London's Proms.

Inspired interpretations of Mr. Kahane make him a popular guest soloist with such leading orchestras as the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Chicago and San Francisco Symphonies, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Israel Philharmonic, and the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields. Highlights of his 1998/99 season include appearances with the New York Philharmonic, the San Francisco Symphony, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the symphonies of San Antonio and Phoenix and U.S. tours with Yo-Yo Ma and jazz pianist Fred Hersch.

In recent years, Mr. Kahane has become an equally inspiring and exhilarating conductor. At present, he is Music Director of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and the Santa Rosa Symphony. Following a successful conducting debut at the Oregon Bach Festival in 1988, Maestro Kahane has received critical praise in his guest conducting appearances with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Dallas, New World, Colorado, and Honolulu Symphonies, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, National Arts Centre Orchestra, Calgary Philharmonic, Rochester Philharmonic, and Royal Philharmonic of Galicia in Spain. In addition, he appears annually as both pianist and conductor at the Oregon Bach Festival and has served as Associate Conductor of the San Luis Obispo Mozart Festival since 1992.

Recent recordings include works of Gershwin and Bernstein with Yo-Yo Ma for SONY, Paul Schoenfield's "Four Parables" with the New World Symphony conducted by John Nelson for Decca/Argo, the Strauss "Burleske" on Telarc with the Cincinnati Symphony under Jesus Lopez-Cobos, and the complete Brandenburg Concerti (on harpsichord) with the Oregon Bach Festival Orchestra under Helmuth Rilling on the Haenssler label. He has also recorded the complete works for violin and piano by Schubert with Joseph Swensen for RCA, Bach's Sinfonias and Partita #4 in D Major for Nonesuch, and Bernstein's "Age of Anxiety" for Virgin Records, which was nominated by Gramophone magazine for their "Record of the Year" award.

Dedicated to working with young musicians, in 1991, Mr. Kahane co-founded the Gardner Chamber Orchestra, an ensemble of outstanding students and recent graduates of the major schools of music in the Boston area, and served as Artistic Director and Conductor from 1991-1995.

A First Prize winner at the 1983 Rubinstein Competition and finalist at the 1981 Van Cliburn Competition, Jeffrey Kahane has also been honored with awards including the 1983 Avery Fisher Career Grant and the first Andrew Wolf Chamber Music Award in 1987.

A native of Los Angeles, Mr. Kahane's early piano studies were with Howard Weisel and Jakob Gimpel. Mr. Kahane is a graduate of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and currently resides in Santa Rosa, California with his wife, Martha, and two children, Gabriel and Anna.