THE EMERSON QUARTET

Eugene Drucker (Violin); Philip Setzer (Violin);
Lawrence Dutton (Viola); David Finckel (Cello)

Acclaimed for its insightful performances, brilliant artistry and technical mastery, the Emerson String Quartet is one of the world's foremost chamber ensembles, and has amassed an impressive list of achievements: a brilliant series of recordings exclusively documented by Deutsche Grammophon since 1987; six Grammy Awards including two unprecedented honors for “Best Classical Album;” and performances of the complete cycles of Beethoven, Bartók and Shostakovich quartets in major concert halls throughout the world. The ensemble is lauded globally as a string quartet that approaches both classical and contemporary repertoire with equal mastery and enthusiasm. For a quarter of a century, the group has collaborated with such artists as Emanuel Ax, Misha Dichter, Leon Fleisher, the Guarneri String Quartet, Thomas Hampson, Lynn Harrell, Barbara Bonney, Barbara Hendricks, the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio, Menahem Pressler, Mstislav Rostropovich, David Shifrin, Richard Stoltzman and the late Isaac Stern and Oscar Shumsky.

In the 2004-2005 season, the Quartet presents a four-concert series in Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall entitled “A Vision of Mendelssohn.” The series explores the complete Mendelssohn quartets, juxtaposed with works by Bach, Beethoven, Schumann and Schubert. The Mendelssohn cycle will also be presented in London at the South Bank Festival in March 2005. Deutsche Grammophon supports these series with a release of the complete Mendelssohn quartets in February 2005. The recording also includes a performance of Mendelssohn’s famous Octet, in which the Emerson is featured playing all eight voices. This was accomplished with a computer designed by the Quartet’s producer specifically for this release, using a sophisticated digital format comprised of 28 recording lines.

In addition to its active performance schedule in the major concert halls of North America, the Quartet tours Europe extensively, with stops in France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Belgium and Austria. 2004-2005 is the Quartet’s 26th sold-out season at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. In the fall of 2002, the Emerson joined Stony Brook University as Quartet-in-Residence, coaching chamber music, giving master classes and providing instrumental instruction. The ensemble initiated its first International Chamber Music Festival at Stony Brook in June 2004. In addition to these duties the group performs several concerts during the year at Stony Brook’s Staller Center for the Arts and continues its educational affiliation with Carnegie Hall in a workshop focusing on quintets by Brahms and Dvořák. In March 2004, the Quartet was named the 18th recipient of the 2004 Avery Fisher Prize – another first for a chamber ensemble.

Throughout its 27-year history, the Emerson String Quartet has garnered an international reputation for groundbreaking chamber music projects and correlated recordings for Deutsche Grammophon. In 1988, the Quartet attracted national attention with the presentation of the six Bartók quartets in a single evening for its Carnegie Hall debut. The Emerson’s subsequent release of the cycle received the 1989 Grammy Awards for “Best Classical Album” and “Best Chamber Music Performance” and Gramophone Magazine’s 1989 “Record of the Year Award” – the first time in the history of each award that a chamber music ensemble had ever received the top prize.

In March 1997, the Quartet released a seven-disc boxed set of the complete Beethoven quartets and organized a series of performances over two seasons at New York’s Lincoln Center entitled “Beethoven and the Twentieth Century,” a total of eight concerts that paired two Beethoven quartets with a twentieth-century composition. Initial reviews of this series were so strong that the remaining performances were completely sold-out, and the disc earned a Grammy Award for “Best Chamber Music Album.”

In 2000, the Emerson performed the complete Shostakovich quartets in a critically acclaimed five-concert series presented at New York’s Alice Tully Hall, as well as at Wigmore Hall and the Barbican Centre in London. The series culminated with The Noise of Time, a theatrical presentation directed by Simon McBurney (Street of Crocodiles, The Chairs) featuring the Quartet and Complicité. The project explored the haunted life of Dmitri Shostakovich through his 15th String Quartet. Blending film, choreography, taped readings and live music, the multimedia work captured the essence of this composer and his music. The theatrical nature of these extraordinary masterpieces and their powerful effect on audiences led the Emerson to record the Shostakovich Quartets live during three summers of performances at the Aspen Music Festival. Meticulous editing eliminated virtually all background noise, and the recording on the Deutsche Grammophon label has been praised for the intensity and energy of its performances. The disc won the 2000 Grammy Awards for “Best Classical Album” and “Best Chamber Music Performance” and Gramophone Magazine’s 2000 “Record of the Year” Award for “Best Chamber Music Performance.” Performances of this project are planned for Paris and Moscow in summer 2005.

Additional projects of note include the 2001 US premiere performances of Wolfgang Rihm’s Dithyrambe for Quartet and Orchestra with Christoph von Dohnanyi and the Cleveland Orchestra in Severance Hall, Boston’s Symphony Hall and New York’s Carnegie Hall. Through this experience, the Quartet became intrigued with the idea of standing while performing and began to experiment with this style in chamber music appearances. The two violinists and the violist of the Emerson now stand for all performances; the cellist plays on a small podium.

During the 2002-2003 season, the Quartet was joined by Thomas Hampson and Barbara Bonney in a pair of concerts at Carnegie Hall that examined the relationships between music and narrative; the series was entitled Text/Subtext. In 2004, the Emerson explored the spiritual dimensions in music with Haydn’s Seven Last Words of Christ on the Cross and Bach’s The Art of Fugue in performance and recordings for Deutsche Grammophon. The next area of interest for the Emerson String Quartet comes from its collaboration with physicist Brian Greene. This unique project demonstrates the principles of String Theory through lecture, computer graphics and the performance of musical works that illustrate scientific concepts and parallel developments in the history of physics and music.

Additional discs on the Deutsche Grammophon label include The Emerson Encores (a compilation of short pieces or movements excerpted from larger works), quartets by Schumann, Dvořák, Prokofiev, Barber and Ives, the Schubert Cello Quintet with Mstislav Rostropovich, the Schumann Piano Quintet and Quartet with Menahem Pressler, the Grammy-nominated Dvořák Piano Quintet and Quartet with Pressler, and the Grammy-nominated complete string works of Anton Webern and Samuel Barber’s Dover Beach with baritone Thomas Hampson. In 1994, the Emerson won its third Grammy Award for “Best Chamber Music Recording” with a disc of American Originals – the quartets of Ives and Barber.

Dedicated to the performance of classical repertoire, the Emerson String Quartet also has a strong commitment to the commissioning and performance of 20th- and 21st-century music. Important commissions and premieres include compositions by Andre Prévin (2003), Joan Tower (2003), Ellen Taaffe Zwillich (1998), Edgar Meyer (1995), Ned Rorem (1995), Paul Epstein (1994), Wolfgang Rihm (1993), Richard Wernick (1991), Richard Danielpour (1988), John Harbison (1987), Gunther Schuller (1986), George Tsontakis (1984), Maurice Wright (1983), Ronald Caltabiano (1981) and Mario Davidovsky (1979).

Formed in the bicentennial year of the United States, 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 violist Lawrence Dutton and cellist David Finckel. The Quartet has performed numerous benefit concerts for causes ranging from nuclear disarmament to the fight against AIDS, world hunger and children's diseases. In 2000, the group was selected as Musical America’s “Ensemble of the Year.” The Quartet members were honored by the Governor of Connecticut for their outstanding cultural contributions to the state, and in 1994 received the University Medal for Distinguished Service from the University of Hartford. In 1995, each member was awarded an honorary doctoral degree by Middlebury College in Vermont. They have also received a Smithson Award from the Smithsonian Institution.

The Emerson String Quartet has been featured in The New York Times Magazine, USA Today, Elle, Bon Appetit, Gramophone, The Strad, and Strings. Television appearances include PBS's NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, WNET’s City Arts, WLIW’s Metroguide, and A&E’s Biography of Beethoven and Breakfast with the Arts. The ensemble has been the subject of two award-winning films: the nationally televised WETA-TV production In Residence at the Renwick (Emmy Award for Excellence, 1983) and Making Music: The Emerson String Quartet (First Place for Music, National Education Film Festival, 1985). To commemorate its 25th-anniversary season, the Quartet compiled a commemorative book entitled Converging Lines. Written in the members’ own words, the book contains never-before-published text, graphics and photos from the Emerson’s private archives. The Quartet is based in New York City.

“America’s greatest quartet.” - Time Magazine

"The Emerson has the traditional string-quartet virtues; each player is a strongly characterized individual, but the ensemble is temperamentally as well as sonically in balance. The four minds play upon each other, and upon the work, in perfect harmony; the players are in tune in all senses of the phrase." - The New Yorker

"The Emerson give us playing of exceptional technical accomplishment and an unusually wide expressive range. They continually offer new insights into some endlessly enthralling music. Do hear them." - Gramophone

For more information about The Emerson Quartet,
please visit their web site at www.emersonquartet.com.