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JUILLIARD STRING QUARTET The Juilliard String Quartet is internationally renowned and admired for performances characterized by clarity of structure, beauty of sound, purity of line and an extraordinary unanimity of purpose. Celebrated for its performances of works by composers as diverse as Beethoven, Schubert, Bartók and Elliott Carter, it has been recognized for over 50 years as the quintessential American string quartet. The 2004-05 season begins with return visits to the Ravinia, and Tanglewood festivals, and includes appearances on major concert series throughout the United States, Europe and Asia. Joined by famed oboist Heinz Holliger, the Quartet will perform in Montreal, Detroit, Philadelphia, Anchorage, Fairbanks, San Francisco, as well as at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. In early October the ensemble opens its 42ndseason as Quartet in Residence at the Library of Congress with a special runout tour to three notable musical institutions in Southern California. Partners with the Library in the project – which includes free concerts, master classes and educational outreach programs – are the Arts and Lectures Program at the University of California at Santa Barbara, the Idyllwild Arts Academy, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Walt Disney Concert Hall. In 2003 The Quartet marked the celebration of its 40th anniversary as Quartet in Residence at the Library of Congress with a twelve-concert complete Beethoven cycle interspersed with works by American composers whose works the Quartet has championed throughout its existence. Succeeding the Budapest Quartet in 1962, the Quartet has acquired a devoted following in Washington and is recognized as the "First Family" of chamber music in the United States. The Quartet performs at the Library of Congress on a set of priceless Stradivari instruments which were donated to the Library in 1936 by Mrs. Gertrude Clarke Whittall. The 2003-04 season also included a round of summer festivals, followed by tours across the United States, Canada and Europe. The ensemble presented several concerts in New York, including a performance at the Mostly Mozart Festival, two concerts at Alice Tully Hall on the Juilliard School's faculty series, chamber music at the 92nd Street Y, and a concert in the opening season of Carnegie Hall’s new Zankel Hall. In May, the ensemble was honored with the Gold Medal of the National Arts Club at its 48th Annual Dinner. Special events of recent seasons included a week of concerts and master classes at the University of Southern California, and an Art of the Fugue marathon at the University of Arizona in Tucson, where they performed the Bach masterwork three times in two days. At Carnegie Hall, the Juilliard Quartet appeared in the Hall’s 100th anniversary gala, and in Maurizio Pollini’s "Perspectives" series with pianist Martha Argerich. The Juilliards played the opening concert in the Seiji Ozawa Hall at Tanglewood, and are the lead-off artists in the recent 10th anniversary recording celebrating Ozawa Hall where they appear annually. They have been frequent guests at the Miyazaki Festival in Japan, and at festivals in Europe including the Lucerne Festival and the Schubertiade in Feldkirch. The Juilliard Quartet has played complete seven-concert Beethoven cycles at Alice Tully Hall in New York, Casals Hall in Tokyo, at Michigan State University, and most recently, at the International Beethoven Festival in Bonn and at the Tonhalle in Düsseldorf. In a departure from the classical norm, the Juilliard Quartet has twice been the featured ensemble – comedic and musical – on Garrison Keillor’s "Prairie Home Companion" radio show. As Quartet in Residence at New York City's Juilliard School, the Juilliard String Quartet is widely admired for its seminal influence on aspiring string players around the world. The Quartet continues to play an important role in the formation of new American ensembles, and was instrumental in the formation of the Alexander, American, Concord, Emerson, La Salle, New World, Mendelssohn, Tokyo, Brentano, Lark, St. Lawrence, and Colorado string quartets. In a momentous occasion at Tanglewood in 1997, the Juilliard String Quartet's founder and first violinist Robert Mann retired from the group after fifty years. Earlier that season, Musical America named the Quartet "Musicians of the Year," making it the first chamber music ensemble ever to appear on the cover of the publication's annual International Directory of the Performing Arts. In its history, the Juilliard String Quartet has performed a comprehensive repertoire of some 500 works, ranging from the great classical composers to masters of the current century. It was the first ensemble to play all six Bartók quartets in the United States, and it was through the group's performances that the quartets of Arnold Schoenberg were rescued from obscurity. An ardent champion of contemporary American music, the Quartet has premiered more than 60 compositions of American composers, including works by some of America's finest jazz musicians. The Quartet has become a persuasive advocate for the complex and visionary string quartets of Elliott Carter, and a landmark recording of those works was issued in 1991 by Sony Classical. The ensemble has been associated with Sony Classical, in its various incarnations, since 1949. In celebration of the Quartet's 50th anniversary, Sony released seven CDs containing previously unreleased material as well as notable performances from the Quartet's award-winning discography. With more than 100 releases to its credit, the ensemble is one of the most widely recorded string quartets of our time; and its recordings of the complete Beethoven quartets, the complete Schoenberg quartets, and the Debussy and Ravel string quartets have all received Grammy Awards. Inducted into the Hall of Fame of the National Academy for Recording Arts and Sciences in 1986 for its recording of the complete Bartók string quartets, the Juilliard Quartet was awarded the Deutsche Schallplattenkritik Prize in 1993 for Lifetime Achievement in the recording industry. In 1994, its recording of quartets by Ravel, Debussy, and Dutilleux was chosen by the Times of London as one of the 100 best classical CDs ever recorded. HEINZ HOLLIGER, Oboe With contributions to the world of music which extend far beyond his principal instrument, Heinz Holliger is one of this century’s truly outstanding musicians. A noted conductor and composer as well as an outstanding oboist, he is devoted to preserving the classic repertoire while at the same time promoting works by living composers and other repertoire of the 20th century. In the 2004/05 season Heinz Holliger returns to the US for a tour with the Juilliard String Quartet performing oboe quartets by Mozart and Elliott Carter at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, at the Herbst Theater in San Francisco presented by San Francisco Performances, the Chamber Music Society of Detroit, the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia for the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Montreal's Theatre Maisonneuve presented by the Pro Musica Society and two concerts in Alaska for the Concert Associations of Fairbanks and Anchorage. Last season Mr. Holliger and distinguished guests appeared at the Da Camera Society in Houston and in two concerts at New York’s 92nd Street Y featuring the complete Zelenka Trio Sonatas and contemporary repertoire of Elliott Carter, Isang Yun and Henri Dutilleux. Recent highlights in Europe include a week long celebration of Heinz Holliger and his work presented by the Cité de la Musique in Paris including performances of his own compositions, appearances as soloist as well as conductor and forum host. Eminent artists and ensembles such as Andras Schiff, Thomas Zehetmair and the Freiburger Barockorchester took part of this festival, which is repeated in Lisbon in November 2004 by the Gulbenkian Foundation. Mr. Holliger has performed and conducted throughout the world with major orchestras, in recital, and at international music festivals including Salzburg, Berlin, Edinburgh and Lucerne Festivals. He has appeared with the Chicago Symphony at Ravinia, the Boston Symphony at Tanglewood, the Cleveland Orchestra, l’Orchestre de Paris, the London Philharmonia and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and conducted the Vienna Philharmonic in 1993. He performed the world premiere of Elliott Carter’s Oboe Concerto in Geneva, and the American premiere later that year with Herbert Blomstedt and the San Francisco Symphony in New York, Boston, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. His own compositions include the opera Snowwhite (Zurich Opera, 1998), Partita (performed by Andras Schiff, Berlin Festival in 2001), and the song cycle Puneigä (performed by Juliane Banse, Wien Modern, 2002). He conducted his major work, the Scardanelli Cycle for chorus, flute and orchestra, on tour in Germany and Switzerland and recorded it for ECM. Mr. Holliger’s repertoire embraces virtually all the great works written for oboe. Among the composers who have written works for him are Luciano Berio, Elliott Carter, Witold Lutosawski, Hans Werner Henze, Andre Jolivet, Frank Martin, Krysztof Penderecki and Karlheinz Stockhausen. His extensive discography includes releases on Deutsche Grammophon, Erato, Teldec, Philips, Monitor and Vox; and he has earned many awards several times over, including the Deutsche Schallplatten Prize, Edison Award, Grand Prix du Disque, and numerous Grammy Award nominations. The son of a physician, Heinz Holliger was born in Switzerland and attended the Bern Conservatory as a student of piano and oboe. He studied composition with Sandor Veress, a pupil of Bartók and Kodály, and with oboist Pierre Pierlot and pianist Yvonne Lefébure in Paris. He joined the Basel Symphony and Chamber Orchestra as principal oboe, and continued his composition studies with Pierre Boulez whom he considers to be one of his greatest musical influences. At age 20, he received the first of a series of many important prizes at international competitions, the First Prize for Oboe in the Geneva International Music Competition. This was followed by the Josef Pembauer Prize for Piano, and first prizes in oboe at both the Swiss Musicians Association Competition and the Munich International Competition. Mr. Holliger is a member of the Berlin Academy of Fine Arts, and an honorary member of the Royal Academy of Music in London. |
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