MUSIC

Houston Friends of Music presents the Emerson String Quartet, Tuesday, April 27, 2010, in Stude Concert Hall on the Rice University campus.

The Emerson String Quartet stands alone in the history of string quartets with an unparalleled list of achievements over three decades: thirty acclaimed recordings produced with Deutsche Grammophon since 1987, eight Grammy Awards (including two for Best Classical Album, an unprecedented honor for a chamber music group), three Gramophone Awards, the coveted Avery Fisher Prize and cycles of the complete Beethoven, Bartók, and Shostakovich string quartets in the world's musical capitals, from New York to London to Vienna.

After more than 32 years of extensive touring and recording, the Emerson Quartet continues to perform with the same benchmark intensity, integrity, energy and commitment that it has demonstrated since it was formed in 1976.

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 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, where they were quartet-in-residence for two decades until 2002. Each member has ben awarded honorary doctoral degrees by Middlebury College, Wooster College and Bard College.

The 2008-2009 season comprised over 90 worldwide engagements, with a two-concert series at the Kennedy Center, a three-concert series at London's Wigmore Hall and a pair of concerts at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in the South Bank Centre, as well as three performances in Israel, where the quartet has not appeared since 1996.

They closed the Houston Friends series and join them this year for the 22nd time. The Emerson String Quartet will again return in April 2011 to help celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Houston Friends of Music.

"Technically resourceful, musically insightful, cohesive, full of character, and always interesting." ~The New York Times

Eugene Drucker, Violin
Philip Setzer, Violin
Lawrence Dutton, Viola
David Finckel, Cello

Selected Program includes:

Dvorak: Cypresses (9 selections)
Janaceck: String Quartet No.2, "Intimate Letters"
Dvorak: Quartet No. 10 in E-Flat Major, Op. 51

Pictured:  Emerson L to R: Philip Setzer, Eugene Drucker, Lawrence Dutton, David Finckel. Photo Credit: Mitch Jenkins.