March 26, 2004
Director of Media Relations
413/542-8417

AMHERST, Mass.- The latest installment of the 2003-04 Music at Amherst Series, the performance by the Brentano String Quartet, has been rescheduled for Wednesday, April 21, at 8 p.m. in Buckley Recital Hall at Amherst College. The concert had been scheduled for Saturday, March 27, at 8 p.m.

The Quartet will perform the String Quartet in B-flat major, Op. 18, No. 6, of Beethoven; the String Quartet No. 2, "Streams," composed in 2003 by Chou Wen-chung for the Brentano; and the String Quartet in F minor, Op. 80, of Felix Mendelssohn, as originally scheduled.

The Brentano String Quartet-Mark Steinberg, violin; Serena Canin, violin; Misha Amory, viola; and Nina Maria Lee, cello-has been singled out for its technical brilliance, musical insight and stylistic elegance since its founding in 1992, receiving many international awards. Reviewer Paul Griffiths in The New York Times wrote "The Brentano String Quartet... is something special. Their music making is private, delicate and fresh, but by its very intimacy and importance it seizes attention."

The Brentano became the first quartet-in-residence at Princeton University in 1999, and served as quartet-in-residence at New York University from 1995 until 2003. The quartet is in residence at Amherst College this year.

The Brentano has made appearances in major musical centers in North America in New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, La Jolla, Detroit, Ann Arbor, Toronto, Washington, DC, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Baltimore, Houston, New Orleans, Kansas City and Boston. In addition the quartet has appeared in such European venues as Royal Festival Hall in London, the Accademia de Santa Cecilia in Rome, and in Frankfurt, Cologne, Florence, Geneva, Stuttgart and Paris. The quartet maintains a strong interest in the music of our time and has commissioned and premiered works by Milton Babbitt, Charles Wuorinen, Bruce Adolphe, Steven Mackey and Jonathan Dawe in addition to Chou Wen-chung. The quartet has collaborated in recent years with Pulitzer-prize winning poet Mark Strand. Its recordings include a CD of music by Bruce Adolphe, one of Haydn's Op. 71 quartets, and one of works by Steven Mackey.

Admission to the concert is $21. Senior citizens and Amherst College employees can buy tickets for $18, and students for $5. Tickets may be reserved by calling 413/542-2195 on weekday mornings. The Amherst College Concert Office has a Website at www.amherst.edu/~concerts/.

###