Colorado Quartet Offers All-Beethoven Concert on November 3
BARD COLLEGE’S QUARTET IN RESIDENCE—THE COLORADO QUARTET—OFFERS ALL-BEETHOVEN CONCERT ON SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 3
ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y.—The Colorado Quartet, quartet in residence at Bard since fall 2000, offers an all-Beethoven concert on Saturday, November 3. Free and open to the public, the program is presented by The Bard Center and begins at 3:00 p.m. in Olin Hall. No reservations are necessary; seating is on a first-come, first-served basis.
The Colorado Quartet, “a first-class ensemble that rises with panache to meet every challenge in the music” (Washington Post), performs Beethoven’s Quartet in A Major, Op. 18, No. 5; Quartet in C Major, Op. 59, No. 3; and Quartet in C-sharp Minor, Op. 131. “The Quartet is about to release a three-CD recording of Beethoven’s late quartets (Opus 95 onward) on the Parnassus label and is also celebrating its 25th anniversary season,” notes violinist Julie Rosenfeld.
Recognized on four continents as one of the finest string quartets on the international scene, the Colorado Quartet’s members are Julie Rosenfeld and Lydia Redding, violins; Marka Gustavsson, viola; and Diane Chaplin, cello. Winners of both the Banff International String Quartet Competition and Naumburg Chamber Music Award, their performances are noted for their musical integrity, impassioned playing, and lyrical finesse.
Highlights of past years include tours of more than 20 countries and performances in major cities across the globe. New York appearances have included the Mostly Mozart Festival, where they performed 20 Haydn quartets over a two-year period, and concerts at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center. The group regularly performs the complete Beethoven quartets, most recently in Berlin, making them the first female quartet to have performed the Beethoven cycle in both North America and Europe. The Colorado Quartet commemorated the 50th anniversary of Béla Bartók’s death in 1995 with the first complete performance in Philadelphia of the Bartók string quartets, and has since performed the Bartók cycle several times.
The Colorado Quartet continues its tenure as quartet in residence at Bard College, coaching chamber music ensembles and enabling Bard students to study throughout the academic year in private lessons with the quartet’s individual members, as well as with the group as a whole, in classes on the literature of the string quartet. The quartet’s inspiring style combines a deep scholarly knowledge of the quartet literature with energy, passion, and a focus on fine details. Its critically acclaimed recordings of Beethoven, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Brahms, and contemporary composers can be found on Parnassus, Mode, and Albany Records. The Colorado Quartet commemorated its 20th anniversary in 2003 with a release of the first in a complete set of Beethoven quartet recordings. The Quartet marks its 25th anniversary in 2007, with plans to release all the late quartets of Beethoven on the Parnassus label.
This concert is made possible, in part, through the generosity of the Homeland Foundation and the Leon Levy Endowment at Bard College. For further information about the program, call The Bard Center at 845-758-7425.
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ABOUT THE ARTISTS
A native of Los Angeles, violinist Julie Rosenfeld has been a member of the Colorado Quartet since 1982. Rosenfeld received her training at the Curtis Institute, the University of Southern California, and Yale University. Her teachers have included Szymon Goldberg, Nathan Milstein, and Yukiko Kamei. She has performed at the Marlboro Music Festival, La Jolla Chamber Music Festival, Skaneateles Festival, Steamboat Springs Festival, and Newport Music Festival, as well as with Chamber Music at Lincoln Center. Rosenfeld has served on juries for the Coleman, Concert Artists Guild, and Juilliard concerto competitions, and in 1992, she was the first female judge at the Banff International String Quartet Competition. In 1996 she was artist in residence at the Marlboro Music Festival and the International Mozart Festival in Poland, and performed the West Coast premiere of André Previn’s Violin Sonata. Her recording with Mr. Previn of French chamber music is available on the BMG label.
Born in New York City, violinist Lydia Redding grew up in Colorado. She founded the quartet while studying at the University of Colorado at Boulder. She holds a bachelor of music degree from that institution, where she studied with Oswald Lehnert, as well as a master of music degree from The Juilliard School, where she was a student of Szymon Goldberg. Redding has taught at the Adamant Chamber Music Workshop and lectured at the European Mozart Academy in Poland. She now teaches at Bard College and has assembled a class of violin students from the surrounding communities. A serious marathoner, Redding runs ultramarathons, distances of 50 to 100 miles, to raise scholarship money for the Soundfest Scholarship Fund.
Violist Marka Gustavsson received her bachelor’s degree with high distinction from Indiana University, where she was a student of Joseph Gingold. Gustavsson also studied at the Mannes School of Music with Felix Galimir, and recently received her doctorate from the City University of New York with a dissertation on the violin music of Enesco. She has appeared in the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society’s “Meet the Music” series, on Robert Sherman’s WQXR Young Artists’ Programs, in Avery Fisher Hall and Boston’s Symphony Hall as a member of the Brandenburg Ensemble, and as a member of the featured string quartet in the ABC documentary Passion to Play. Internationally, she has performed in the Festival Presence de Ligeti at Radio-France’s Salle Messiaen in Paris, for the queen of the Netherlands at Vredenburg Hall in Holland, and at Toru Takemitsu’s memorial concert at Oji Hall in Tokyo. Gustavsson has worked with such composers as Martin Bresnick, Tan Dun, John Halle, and Henri Dutilleux, and has collaborated with such performing artists as Bayla Keyes, Daniel Phillips, David Geber, and Michael Tree. She has served on the faculty of Hofstra University and also as a member of the Hofstra String Quartet and the Kinhaven Music Festival in Vermont. She lives in New York with her husband, John Halle, and their son, Benjamin.
A native of Los Angeles, cellist Diane Chaplin has been a member of the quartet since 1988. She holds a bachelor of fine arts degree from the California Institute of the Arts, where she was a student of Cesare Pascarella, and a master of music degree from The Juilliard School, where she studied with Harvey Shapiro. Chaplin currently serves as the administrative director of the Soundfest Chamber Music Festival and Quartet Institute, and also holds teaching positions at Bard College and at a private school in Manhattan. She has performed throughout the United States and Europe, including appearances with Mikhail Baryshnikov and the Flying Karamazov Brothers. Chaplin received a special prize from the International Cello Competition in Viña del Mar, Chile, as well as a certificate from the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow.
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(10/12/07)