The St. Lawrence String Quartet will perform the final concert of the 2009-2010 Richard P. Garmany Chamber Music Series on Thursday, April 8, at 7:30 PM in Millard Auditorium, on the University of Hartford campus. A special pre-concert dinner precedes the performance and begins at 6:00 PM in the University's 1877 Club. Admission to the concert is $30, with discounts available for seniors, students, and groups. For concert and/or dinner tickets, please call the University Box Office at 860.768.4228 or 800.274.8587 or visit www.hartford.edu/hartt for tickets and information.
The St. Lawrence String Quartet was Hartt's Graduate Quartet-in-Residence under the tutelage of the Emerson String Quartet from 1990 to 1992 and has risen steadily in stature to become one of the preeminent quartets in the world. Known for its imaginative programming and its interactions with audiences and students alike, the St. Lawrence's work has been hailed as "absorbingly lovely" and "stylistically impeccable, with superb ensemble work, beautiful tone and expressiveness..." by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Members of the St. Lawrence String Quartet are: Geoff Nuttall, violin; Scott St. John, violin; Lesley Robertson, viola; and Christopher Costanza, cello. Nuttall and Robertson are original founding members of the Quartet.
"It's very gratifying to see the St. Lawrence Quartet evolve from being a graduate ensemble in residence here at Hartt to one of the premier quartets in the chamber music world," says Steve Metcalf, artistic director of the Garmany Chamber Music Series. "I hope this concert will feel like a kind of homecoming, both for
The Players and for those in the audience who might remember them from all those years ago."
The program will consist of the New England premiere of John Adams' String Quartet (2008) commissioned by and written for the St. Lawrence String Quartet. "What's extraordinary about SLSQ is that they can both play as an absolute unity [sic] and also play with four individual personalities that are so extraordinary and so differentiated. [In the quartet], I take advantage of this quite a bit. I usually work on a large canvas - operas and symphony orchestras. . . . It's so rare to have a piece of music that has been played many times over more than a year and so internalized by such extraordinary musicians," said Adams.
The program also will include Antonin Dvorak's String Quartet in G major, Op. 106. A reception with the artists will be held in the Millard Lobby immediately following the concert.
This Series has been made possible by a grant from the Richard P. Garmany Fund at the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving. The grant is one of the first awarded by the Garmany Fund. Mr. Garmany, who lived in Avon and was an executive at Aetna, created the fund before his death in July 2008. The Richard P. Garmany Fund at the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving has renewed and increased its support for the 2010-2011 Richard P. Garmany Chamber Music Series at The Hartt School. Artists and performance dates are soon to be announced.
About The St. Lawrence String Quartet
The St. Lawrence String Quartet (SLSQ) has established itself among the world-class chamber ensembles of its generation. Its mission: Bring every piece of music to the audience in vivid color, with pronounced communication and teamwork, and great respect to the composer.
Since winning both the Banff International String Quartet Competition and Young Concert Artists International Auditions in 1992, the quartet has delighted audiences with its spontaneous, passionate, and dynamic performances. Alex Ross of The New Yorker magazine writes, "the St. Lawrence are remarkable not simply for the quality of their music making, exalted as it is, but for the joy they take in the act of connection."
The SLSQ has been involved in numerous inventive collaborations, including projects with the renowned Pilobolus Dance Theatre and the Emerson Quartet. In 2007 they joined with soprano Heidi
Grant Murphy and pianist
Kevin Murphy to premiere Roberto Sierra's "Songs from the Diaspora" - a commission through the Music Accord consortium. They have also performed R. Murray Shafer's Concerto for Quartet and Orchestra "4-40" with Peter Oundjian and the Toronto Symphony, Em
Manuel Villaume and the Spoleto Festival Orchestra, and Yuli Turovsky with I Musici de Montreal.
Early in their career, the SLSQ was privileged to study with the Emerson, Tokyo and Juilliard String Quartets, and have for many years been passionate educators themselves. Since 1998 they have held the position of Ensemble in Residence at Stanford University. This residency includes working with students of music as well as extensive collaborations with other faculty and departments using music to explore a myriad of topics. The foursome's passion for opening up musical arenas to players and listeners alike is evident in their annual summer chamber music seminar at Stanford and their many forays into the depths of musical meaning with preeminent music educator Robert Kapilow.
Violist Lesley Robertson is a founding member of the group, and hails from Edmonton Alberta. Cellist Christopher Costanza is from Utica, New York and joined the quartet in 2003. Violinists Geoff Nuttall and Scott St. John both grew up in London, Ontario; Geoff is a founding member and Scott joined in 2006. Depending on concert repertoire, the two alternate the role of first violin. All four members of the quartet live and teach at beautiful Stanford University, in the Bay Area of California.
The SLSQ is deeply committed to bringing music to less traditional venues outside the classroom or concert hall. Regardless of the venue, the St. Lawrence players maintain a strong desire to share the wonders of chamber music with their listeners, a characteristic of the foursome that has led them to a more informal performance style than one might expect from chamber musicians. "Play every concert like it's your last; every phrase like it's the most important thing you've ever said," Geoff Nuttall asserts. "Remember that the only reason you're there is to make people cry and sweat and shiver, and give them that incredible sense of creation happening before your eyes. That's the reason we all play. Otherwise there's no point."
The Hartt School is the comprehensive performing arts conservatory of the University of Hartford that offers innovative degree programs in music, dance, and theatre. With more than 400 vocal and instrumental concerts, recitals, plays, master classes, opera performances, dance concerts, and musical theatre productions a year, performance is central to Hartt's curriculum. For more information on The Hartt School, visit
www.hartford.edu/hartt.
The Hartford Foundation for Public Giving is the community foundation for the 29-town Greater Hartford region, dedicated to improving the quality of life for area residents for the past 85 years. The Foundation receives gifts from thousands of generous individuals and families, and last year, awarded grants of nearly $26 million to a broad range of area nonprofit organizations. For more information about the Hartford Foundation, visit
www.hfpg.org or call 860-548-1888.
Photo credit: Marco Borggreve
Pictured: The St. Lawrence String Quartet
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