Director of Media Relations
413/542-8417
AMHERST, Mass.—In the final installment of the 2004-05 Music at Amherst Series, the Brentano String Quartet will perform the Schoenberg String Quartet No. 2 with soprano Elizabeth Keusch on Saturday, March 27, at 8 p.m. in Buckley Recital Hall at Amherst College.
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 Boston Herald , meanwhile, calls Elizabeth Keusch a “complete artist” and praises her “confidence and strength.”
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.
The latest information can be obtained from the Amherst College Concert Website at www.amherst.edu/~concerts. Admission to the concert is $22; senior citizens and Amherst College employees, $19; and students $5. For more information and brochures call the Concert Office at 413/542-2195, or e-mail concert manager Michael Baumgarten at mhbaumgarten@amherst.edu.
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