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.