Gualala Arts Promoting public interest and participation in the arts since 1961
Gualala Arts presents a Chamber Music Concert in Coleman Hall Sunday, February 20, 2022, 4 pm.
Gualala Arts and the Chamber Music Series brings award-winning Alexander String Quartet to Coleman Hall at Gualala Arts on Sunday, February 20, 2022 at 4 pm. Tickets are $40 in advance, $45 at the door (if available.) Tickets can be purchased at Gualala Arts, the Dolphin Gallery, and online at EventBrite.com. A maximum of 50 tickets will be sold for this event!
PLEASE NOTE: Due to Mendocino county regulations, masking is required by all including presenters, in addition proof of COVID-19 vaccine is required
for all TICKETED inside concerts & workshops at Gualala Arts Center until further notice.
The members of the Alexander String Quartet are David Samuel, viola; Zakarias Grafilo, violin; Frederick Lifsitz, violin; and Sandy Wilson, cello. Joining the Quartet is guest artist Jeffrey LaDeur, piano.
For four decades, the ALEXANDER STRING QUARTET has performed in the major music capitals of five continents, securing its standing among the world’s premiere ensembles. Widely admired for its interpretations of Beethoven, Mozart, and Shostakovich, the quartet’s recordings of the Beethoven cycle (twice), and the Bartók and Shostakovich cycles have all won international critical acclaim. The quartet has also established itself as an important advocate of new music through over 30 commissions from such composers as Jake Heggie, Cindy Cox, Augusta Read Thomas, Robert Greenberg, Martin Bresnick, César Cano, and Pulitzer Prize-winner, Wayne Peterson. A new work by Tarik O’Reagan comissioned for the Alexander by the Boise Chamber Music Series, had its premiere in October 2016, and a work for piano quintet from Samuel Carl Adams was premiered in the 2019-2020 season with pianist, Joyce Yang.
The program for the February 20 concert is:
Dvorak: Bagatelles, Op. 47
Dvorak: String Quartet in D minor, Op. 34
Intermission
Dvorak: Piano Quartet in E-flat major, Op. 87
A PDF with extensive notes on the February 20 music program is available here.
The Alexander String Quartet is a major artistic presence in its home base of San Francisco, serving since 1989 as Ensemble in Residence for San Francisco Performances and Directors of the Instructional Program for the Morrison Chamber Music Center in the College of Liberal and Creative Arts at San Francisco State University.
The Alexander String Quartet’s annual calendar of concerts includes engagements at major halls throughout North America and Europe. The quartet has appeared at Lincoln Center, the 92nd Street Y, and the Metropolitan Museum in New York City; Jordan Hall in Boston; the Library of Congress and Dumbarton Oaks in Washington; and chamber music societies and universities across the North American continent. The quartet recently returned as faculty to the Yale School of Music’s Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, a nexus of their early career. Recent overseas tours have brought them to the U.K., the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Poland, Italy, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, France, Greece, the Republic of Georgia, Argentina, Panamá, and the Philippines. Their recent tour of Poland for the Beethoven Easter Festival has been beautifully captured in the new (2017) documentary film, Con Moto by the Documentary Film Institute at San Francisco State University.
Among the eminent musicians with whom the Alexander String Quartet has collaborated are pianists Joyce Yang, Roger Woodward, Anne-Marie McDermott, Jon Nakamatsu, Menahem Pressler, Marc-André Hamelin and Jeremy Menuhin; clarinetists Joan Enric Lluna, David Shifrin, Richard Stolzman, and Eli Eban; soprano Elly Ameling; mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato; violinist Midori; violist Toby Appel; cellists Lynn Harrell, Sadao Harada, and David Requiro; and jazz greats, Branford Marsalis, David Sánchez, and Andrew Speight. The quartet has worked with many composers including Aaron Copland, George Crumb, and Elliot Carter and has long enjoyed a close relationship with composer-lecturer Robert Greenberg, performing numerous lecture-concerts with him annually.
The Alexander String Quartet added considerably to its distinguished and wide-ranging discography over the past decade, now recording exclusively for the FoghornClassics label. There were three major releases in the 2013-2014 season: The combined string quartet cycles of Bartók and Kodály (“If ever an album had “Grammy nominee” written on its front cover, this is it.” -Audiophile Audition); The String Quintets & Sextets of Brahms with Toby Appel and David Requiro (“a uniquely detailed, transparent warmth” -Strings Magazine); and the Brahms & Schumann Piano Quintets with Joyce Yang (“passionate, soulful readings of two pinnacles of the chamber repertory” -The New York Times). Their recording of music of Gershwin and Kern was released in the summer of 2012, following the Spring 2012 recording of the clarinet quintet of Brahms and a new quintet from César Cano (in Friendship), in collaboration with Joan Enric Lluna, as well as a disc in collaboration with the San Francisco Choral Artists (with Strings Attached). An album of works by Cindy Cox was released in 2015. Their recordings of Mozart’s “Prussian” Quartets and Piano Quartets with Joyce Yang will be released in the Spring of 2018.
The Alexander’s 2009 release of the complete Beethoven Cycle was described by Music Web International as performances “uncompromising in power, intensity and spiritual depth,” while Strings Magazine described the set as “a landmark journey through the greatest of all quartet cycles.” In Fall 2017, FoghornClassics released a high resolution remastered version of their acclaimed recording of the complete Shostakovich quartets (Fragments Volume 1 & Volume 2). A recording of the complete quartets of Pulitzer prize-winning San Francisco composer, Wayne Peterson (Retrospections), was released in the Spring of 2008. BMG Classics released the quartet’s first recording of Beethoven cycle on its Arte Nova label to tremendous critical acclaim in 1999.
The Alexander String Quartet was formed in New York City in 1981 and captured international attention as the first American quartet to win the London International String Quartet Competition in 1985. The quartet has received honorary degrees from Allegheny College and St. Lawrence University, and Presidential medals from Baruch College (CUNY). The Alexander plays on a matched set of instruments made in San Francisco by Francis Kuttner (born in Washington, D.C., 1951). This year marks the 30th anniversary of these instruments, known as the Ellen M. Egger Quartet.
Gualala Arts is able to bring you these wonderful artists because of the generosity of the donors to the Gualala Arts Chamber Music Series. Ticket sales cover only a portion of artists’ fees and we are committed to keeping prices affordable in order to make this quality of music performance available for the entire Mendonoma community. Please consider making a donation to maintain exceptional music programming here on our beautiful stretch of the Northern California coast. Categories of giving include:
• Gifts up to $100 – Contributors
• $100-249 – Friends
• $250-499 – Supporters
• $500-999 – Patrons
• $1000-2499 – Benefactors
• $2500 and above – Angels