String Quartet Plus One
| 1. | Introduction | 00:00:50 |
| 2. | Puccini: Scherzo for String Quartet | 00:07:06 |
| 3. | Reicha: Quintet in B-flat major for Clarinet, Two Violins, Viola, and Cello, Op. 89 | 00:25:27 |
| 4. | Jiping/Zhao Lin Zhao: Red Lantern for Pipa and String Quartet | 00:25:06 |
| 5. | Closing | 00:00:30 |
A string quartet on its own can sound like a whole orchestra, or like four individuals humming as softly as they can. Giacomo Puccini highlights the string quartet’s strengths in his Scherzo for String Quartet featuring moments of melodic invention, the sparkle of string technique, and the richness of harmonies for these four voices. However, add a contrasting instrument to a string quartet and a wonderful chamber music partnership is born. In Anton Reicha’s Clarinet Quintet, sometimes the quartet is like one instrument — a piano accompanying a singer while the clarinetist diva soars above, while at other moments, each instrument interacts as an individual playing against each other with endless variety and fun. The final work on the program is based on a film score by Zhao Jiping arranged by his son, Zhao Lin and features a string quartet alongside the pipa, a traditional Chinese instrument, which is plucked and sounds somewhat like a lute.
PROGRAM
|
Giacomo Puccini (1858–1924) |
Scherzo for String Quartet (c. 1880) Orion String Quartet (Daniel Phillips, Todd Phillips, violin; Steven Tenenbom, viola; Timothy Eddy, cello) |
|
Anton Reicha (1770–1836) |
Quintet in B-flat major for Clarinet, Two Violins, Viola, and Cello, Op. 89 (c. 1809) Tommaso Lonquich, clarinet; Alexi Kenney, Sean Lee, violin; Misha Amory, viola; Nicholas Canellakis, cello |
|
Jiping/Zhao Lin Zhao |
Red Lantern for Pipa and String Quartet (2015) Wu Man, pipa; Shanghai Quartet (Weigang Li, Yi-Wen Jiang, violin; Honggang Li, viola; Nicholas Tzavaras, cello) |
| Title | Date |
|---|---|
| Streaming live | {{ViewModel.StreamingOn.date}}, {{ViewModel.StreamingOn.time}} |
| Off-sale on | {{ViewModel.OffSaleDate.date}}, {{ViewModel.OffSaleDate.time}} |
| Available on-demand until | {{ViewModel.AvailableUntil.date}}, {{ViewModel.AvailableUntil.time}} |
{{ViewModel.BuySubscription.prompt}}
Tommaso Lonquich
Sean Lee
Nicholas Canellakis
Shanghai Quartet
Italian clarinetist Tommaso Lonquich enjoys a distinguished international career, having performed on the most prestigious stages of four continents. Praised by reviewers for his “passion, sumptuous tone, magical finesse, and dazzling virtuosity,” he is Solo Clarinetist with Ensemble MidtVest, the acclaimed chamber ensemble based in Denmark. As a chamber musician, he has partnered with Christian Tetzlaff, Pekka Kuusisto, Carolin Widmann, Ani and Ida Kavafian, Nicolas Dautricourt, David Shifrin, David Finckel, Nicolas Altstaedt, Wu Han, Gilbert Kalish, Anneleen Lenaerts, Yura Lee, Gilles Vonsattel, and the Danish and Vertavo string quartets. As a guest principal in several orchestras, he has collaborated with conductors including Zubin Mehta, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Fabio Luisi, and Leonard Slatkin. As a soloist, he has appeared with the Radio Television Orchestra of Slovenia, Orchestra Canova, and the Orchestra del Teatro Olimpico of Vicenza, among others. He is Founder and Co-Artistic Director of Schackenborg Musikfest, a summer festival set in a royal castle in Denmark. He has conceived several collaborative performances with dancers, actors, and visual artists and has been particularly active in improvisation, leading workshops at the Juilliard School. He has given master classes at the Manhattan School of Music, the Royal Danish Academy, and the Royal Welsh College of Music. Lonquich can be heard on more than twenty albums and is an alum of CMS’s Bowers Program. Alongside his artistic career, he is a practicing psychoanalyst and co-founder of the International Center for Lacanian Psychoanalysis in Ljubljana, Slovenia.
With performances described by the New York Times as “breathtakingly beautiful,” violinist Sean Lee has performed with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center for over a decade, following his participation in CMS’s Bowers Program. A recipient of Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Career Grant, Lee has performed as a soloist with orchestras including the San Francisco Symphony, Jerusalem Symphony, and Orchestra del Teatro Carlo Felice. Originally from Los Angeles, Lee studied with Robert Lipsett of the Colburn Conservatory and legendary violinist Ruggiero Ricci before studying at the Juilliard School with his longtime mentor, violinist Itzhak Perlman. Lee performs on violins made by Samuel Zygmuntowicz in 1995 and David Bague in 1999, and a bow made circa 1890 by Joseph Arthur Vigneron.
Nicholas Canellakis has become one of the most sought-after and innovative cellists of his generation, praised in the New Yorker as a “superb young soloist.” Recent highlights include solo debuts with the Virginia, Albany, Bangor, and Delaware symphony orchestras; concerto appearances with the Erie Philharmonic, the New Haven Symphony, and the American Symphony Orchestra; Europe and Asia tours with CMS; and recitals throughout the US with his longtime duo collaborator, pianist-composer Michael Stephen Brown. An alum of CMS’s Bowers Program, he is a regular guest artist at many of the world’s leading music festivals. Canellakis is the Artistic Director of Chamber Music Sedona in Arizona and is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music (where he was recently appointed to the cello faculty) and New England Conservatory.
Over the past 40 years, the Shanghai Quartet has become one of the world’s foremost chamber ensembles. The quartet’s elegant style, impressive technique, and emotional breadth allows the group to move seamlessly between masterpieces of Western music, traditional Chinese folk music, and cutting-edge contemporary works. Formed at the Shanghai Conservatory in 1983, soon after the end of China’s harrowing Cultural Revolution, the group came to the United States to complete its studies; since then the members have been based in the US while maintaining a robust touring schedule at leading chamber music series throughout North America, Europe, and Asia.
Recent performance highlights include performances at Carnegie Hall, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Freer Gallery (Washington, DC), the Festival Pablo Casals in France, the Brevard Music Center, the Beethoven Festival in Poland, and throughout China. The quartet also frequently performs at Wigmore Hall, the Budapest Spring Festival, Suntory Hall, and with the NCPA and Shanghai Symphony Orchestras. Recent highlights include the premiere of a new work by Marcos Balter for the Quartet and countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo for the Phillips Collection, return performances for Maverick Concerts and the Taos School of Music, and engagements in Los Angeles, Syracuse, Albuquerque, and Salt Lake City.
Among innumerable collaborations with eminent artists, they have performed with the Tokyo, Juilliard, and Guarneri Quartets; cellists Yo-Yo Ma and Lynn Harrell; pianists Menahem Pressler, Peter Serkin, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, and Yuja Wang; pipa virtuoso Wu Man; and the vocal ensemble Chanticleer. The Shanghai Quartet appears regularly at many of North America’s most prominent chamber music festivals, including annual performances for Maverick Concerts, the Brevard Music Center, and Music Mountain.
The Shanghai Quartet has a long history of championing new music, with a special interest in works that juxtapose the traditions of Eastern and Western music. The quartet has commissioned works from some of the most important composers of our time, including William Bolcom, Sebastian Currier, David Del Tredici, Tan Dun, Vivian Fung, Lowell Lieberman, Zhou Long, Marc Neikrug, Krzysztof Penderecki, Bright Sheng, Chen Yi, and Du Yun. The quartet had a particularly close relationship with Krzysztof Penderecki; they premiered his third quartet, Leaves From an Unwritten Diary, at the composer’s 75th birthday concert and repeated it again at both his 80th and 85th birthday celebrations. Recent commissions include new works from Judith Weir, Tan Dun, and Wang Lei.
The Shanghai Quartet has an extensive discography of more than thirty recordings, ranging from Schumann and Dvořák piano quintets with Rudolf Buchbinder to Zhou Long’s Poems from Tang for string quartet and orchestra with the Singapore Symphony. The quartet has recorded the complete Beethoven string quartets and is currently recording the complete Bartók quartets.
Serving as Quartet-in-Residence at the John J. Cali School of Music at Montclair State University since 2002, the Shanghai Quartet joined the Tianjin (China) Juilliard School in fall 2020 as resident faculty members. The Quartet also is the Ensemble-in-Residence with the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra and visiting guest professors of the Shanghai Conservatory and Central Conservatory in Beijing.