March 3, 1997

The Emerson String Quartet Returns to the Center

for the Arts

The Emerson String Quartet returned to the Middlebury

College stage in the CFA Concert Hall this February to play a

sumptuous program of Brahm’s Opus 67, Bartok’s Quartet

No. 3, and Schubert’s Death of the Maiden.

Acclaimed for its artistry and dynamic performance

style, the Emerson String Quartet has amassed an impressive list

of achievements: an exclusive Deutsche Gramophone recording contract,

three Grammy awards, regular appearances with virtually every

important series and festival worldwide, and an international

reputation as a quartet that approaches both the classics and

contemporary music with equal mastery and enthusiasm.

1996 found the quartet giving the world premiere

of Ned Rorem’s String Quartet #4 in Alice Tully Hall, a

premiere of a quartet written for them by Curt Cacioppo for Philharmonic

Chamber Music Society, and concerts in Chicago, Los Angeles, San

Francisco, Cleveland, Toronto, Miami, Houston, and Seattle. They

toured Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy and France, traveled

to Torino for a marathon of all six Bartok quartets, and returned

to London’s South Bank for a six-concert cycle. In the coming

summer, they will make their first appearance in Israel under

the auspices of the Jerusalem Festival.

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 violinist Lawrence Dutton and Cellist

David Finckel. All four have performed many benefit concerts for

causes ranging from nuclear disarmament to the first against AIDS,

world hunger, and children’s diseases. In 1995 they received an

honorary degree from Middlebury College.