The Orion String Quartet, recognized as one of the country’s foremost chamber ensembles, and pianist Peter Serkin, known for championing contemporary music, join to present the final concert in the 2009-2010 Eastman-Ranlet Series on Sunday, April 11.
The program, at 3 p.m. in the Eastman School of Music’s Kilbourn Hall, includes Brahms’s Piano Quintet in F Minor, J.S. Bach’s Contrapunctus no. 1 from Art of the Fugue, Beethoven’s Quartet in E-flat Major, op. 74, “Harp,” and Kirchner’s String Quartet no. 4.
The Orion String Quartet gained immediate attention in the classical music world when its founding members, each with distinguished solo and chamber music careers, officially formed the ensemble in 1987. The quartet performs diverse programs that juxtapose classic works of the standard quartet literature with masterworks by living composers.
With more than 50 performances a year, quartet members — violinists Daniel Phillips and Todd Phillips, violist Steven Tenenbom, and cellist Timothy Eddy — have worked with Pablo Casals, Rudolf Serkin, Isaac Stern, Pinchas Zukerman, Yo-Yo-Ma, and other major figures, and have commissioned works from such composers as Chick Corea, Alexander Goehr, John Harbison, and Wynton Marsalis.
The Orion String Quartet serves as quartet-in-residence at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and New York’s Mannes College of Music, has produced 10 recordings, and has appeared on PBS’s Live from Lincoln Center, A&E’s Breakfast with the Arts, and on ABC-TV’s Good Morning America.
Serkin began music studies with his mother, the daughter of violinist and composer Adolf Busch. In 1958, at age 11, he entered the Curtis Institute of Music and the following year made debuts at the Marlboro Festival and in New York City.
Serkin has performed with the world’s major symphony orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, the Berlin Philharmonic, Deutsches Symphony Orchestra, the Boston Symphony, and Toronto Symphony. Also a dedicated chamber musician, he has collaborated with violinists Alexander Schneider and Pamela Frank, cellist Yo-Yo-Ma, and the Budapest, Guarneri and Orion string quartets and TASHI chamber quartet, of which he was a founding member.
An avid proponent of the music of many of the 20th and 21st century’s most important composers, Serkin has been instrumental in bringing the music of Schoenberg, Webern, Berg, Messiaen, Takemitsu, Berio, Wuorinen, and Lieberson, among others, to audiences around the world.
Tickets to the concert are $10 to $20 and are available in advance at the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra box office, 108 East Ave., by phone at 585-454-2100, or online at https://www.esm.rochester.edu/concerts/tickets.php
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Calendar Listing:
Sunday, April 11
Eastman-Ranlet Series: Orion String Quartet with Peter Serkin, piano. Music of J. S. Bach, Kirchner, Beethoven, and Brahms
3 p.m.
Kilbourn Hall, 26 Gibbs St.
Admission: $10 to $20, discount with UR or student ID. Available at the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra box office, 108 East Ave., by phone at 585-454-2100, or online at https://www.esm.rochester.edu/concerts/tickets.php