Apollon Musagète Quartet and Garrick Ohlsson Play Segerstrom Center in October

Segerstrom Center for the Arts presents Apollon Musagète Quartet & pianist Garrick Ohlsson on Sunday, October 9, 2022, 2:00 pm at the Samueli Theater.

Apollon Musagète Quartet teams up with Garrick Ohlsson for a wondrous chamber concert this October. Known as a dynamic quartet whose popularity on the European classical music scene continues to soar, Apollon Musagète Quartet is one of the most creative and charismatic ensembles in international music.

Since his triumph as winner of the 1970 Chopin International Piano Competition, pianist Garrick Ohlsson has established himself worldwide as a musician of magisterial interpretive and technical prowess. Although long regarded as one of the world's leading exponents of the music of Frédéric Chopin, Ohlsson commands an enormous repertoire, which ranges over the entire piano literature.

The Apollon Musagète musicians are Paweł Zalejski (Violin), Bartosz Zachłod (Violin), Piotr Szumieł (Viola), and Piotr Skweres (Cello). The program includes Bach: The Art of The Fugue, BWV 1080 Nos. 1, 4 and 9, Penderecki: Quartet No. 3 "Leaves from an Unwritten Diary", and Shostakovich: Piano Quintet in G minor, Op. 57.

This performance includes a pre-show talk with musicologist Dr. Byron Adams and will make for a perfect night of classical music.

Single tickets for The Apollon Musagète Quartet & Garrick Ohlsson at Segerstrom Center for the Arts start at $29 and are now available online at SCFTA.org, at the Box Office at 600 Town Center Drive in Costa Mesa or by calling (714) 556-2787. For inquiries about group ticket discounts for 10 or more, call the Group Services office at (714) 755-0236.

Winner of first prize and several other awards at the International Music Competition of the ARD in 2008, the Apollon Musagète Quartet has rapidly become an established feature of the European musical scene, captivating public and press alike. The quartet studied with Johannes Meissl at the European Chamber Music Academy and was inspired by the musicians of the Alban Berg Quartet at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna.

The quartet was nominated ECHO Rising Stars 2010, followed by highly successful performances at prestigious European venues. It was also named BBC New Generation Artist in 2012, leading to extensive touring in the UK and a number of recordings for the BBC. In 2014 the musicians received the Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award.

Recent engagements have taken the quartet to the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Konzerthaus and Philharmonie Berlin, Edinburgh International Festival, Wigmore Hall London, Carnegie Hall New York, Rheingau Musik Festival, Schwetzinger SWR Festspiele and to the Chopin and his Europe Festival in Warsaw. Highlights for the 2018/19 season include debuts and return engagements at the Auditori Barcelona, Bozar Brussels, Frauenkirche Dresden, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Gewandhaus Leipzig, Louvre Paris and at the Tonhalle Zurich.

In summer 2019 the quartet starts its triannual Schubert cycle for the Schubertiade in Austria. Furthermore, they will especially focus on the works by Dvořák which will be performed during the next seasons at the Kasseler Musiktage - one of the oldest music festivals in Europe In June 2019 their Japan tour will bring them to locations such as Nagoya, Tokyo and Yokohama.

The Apollon Musagète Quartet collaborates with renowned artists in chamber music such as Martin Fröst, Per Arne Glorvigen, Nils Mönkemeyer, Gabriela Montero, István Várdai and Jörg Widmann. They appeared in several symphonic series with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Dresden Philharmonic and the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra in Katowice.

They welcome collaborations that integrate chamber music into various forms of performing arts and were part of projects such as a staged concert by the Berlin based performance group Nico and the Navigators, a ballet production of The National Theatre in Nuremberg and a world tour with the pop singer Tori Amos. Their own compositions Multitude for String Quartet and A Multitude of Shades, both published by the Viennese publisher Doblinger, are often included in the quartet's concert repertoire.

Since the debut CD by Oehms Classics in 2010 followed by recordings for the labels such as Decca Classics and Deutsche Grammophon, their discography has grown extensively.

In summer 2018, a disc containing quartets by Andrzej Panufnik was released by the Fryderyk-Chopin-Institute and subsequently the latest recording with works by Karol Szymanowski and Roman Palester by Universal Poland.

Piotr Skweres plays an ex-André Navarra cello by Gennaro Gagliano dated 1741. The instrument has kindly been provided by Merito String Instruments Trust Vienna. Furthermore, the quartet thanks the Thomastik Infeld for the generous support and the enterprise Stoffwerk for the exclusive and custom-made concert clothes.

A student of the late Claudio Arrau, Garrick Ohlsson has come to be noted for his masterly performances of the works of Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert, as well as the Romantic repertoire. To date he has at his command more than 80 concertos, ranging from Haydn and Mozart to works of the 21st century, many commissioned for him.

In 2018/19 season he launched an ambitious project spread over multiple seasons exploring the complete solo piano works of Brahms in four programs to be heard in New York, San Francisco, Montreal, Los Angeles, London and a number of cities across North America.

A frequent guest with the orchestras in New Zealand and Australia, Ohlsson accomplished a seven city recital tour across Australia just prior to the closure of the concert world due to COVID-19. Since that time and as a faculty member of San Francisco Conservatory of Music he kept music alive for a number of organizations with live or recorded recital streams and since the re-opening of concert activity in summer 2021 has appeared with the Indianapolis, Atlanta, Dallas, Seattle, Toronto and Cleveland orchestras, in recital in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Houston; Ravinia and Tanglewood summer festivals and a tour in the US with colleague Kirill Gerstein. The 2022/23 season includes orchestras in Boston, Detroit, Minneapolis, San Diego, Spain, Poland and Czech Republic.

An avid chamber musician, Ohlsson has collaborated with the Cleveland, Emerson, Tokyo and Takacs string quartets and will begin the 22/23 season with a US tour with Poland's Apollon Musagète Quartet. Together with violinist Jorja Fleezanis and cellist Michael Grebanier, he is a founding member of the San Francisco-based FOG Trio. Passionate about singing and singers, Ohlsson has appeared in recital with such legendary artists as Magda Olivero, Jessye Norman, and Ewa Podleś.

Ohlsson can be heard on the Arabesque, RCA Victor Red Seal, Angel, BMG, Delos, Hänssler, Nonesuch, Telarc, Hyperion and Virgin Classics labels. His ten-disc set of the complete Beethoven Sonatas, for Bridge Records, has garnered critical acclaim, including a GRAMMY for Vol. 3. His recording of Rachmaninoff's Concerto No. 3, with the Atlanta Symphony and Robert Spano, was released in 2011. In 2008, the English label Hyperion re-released his 16-disc set of the Complete Works of Chopin followed in 2010 by all the Brahms piano variations, "Goyescas" by Enrique Granados, and music of Charles Tomlinson Griffes. Most recently on that label are Scriabin's Complete Poèmes, Smetana Czech Dances, and ètudes by Debussy, Bartok and Prokofiev.

The latest CDs in his ongoing association with Bridge Records are the Complete Scriabin Sonatas, "Close Connections," a recital of 20th-Century pieces, and two CDs of works by Liszt. In recognition of the Chopin bicentenary in 2010, Ohlsson was featured in a documentary "The Art of Chopin" co-produced by Polish, French, British and Chinese television stations. Most recently, both Brahms concerti and Sydney Symphonies on their own recording labels, and Ohlsson was featured on Dvorak's piano concerto in the Czech Philharmonic's recordings of the composer's complete symphonies & concertos, released July of 2014 on the Decca label.

A native of White Plains, N.Y., Garrick Ohlsson began his piano studies at the age of 8, at the Westchester Conservatory of Music; at 13 he entered The Juilliard School, in New York City. His musical development has been influenced in completely different ways by a succession of distinguished teachers, most notably Claudio Arrau, Olga Barabini, Tom Lishman, Sascha Gorodnitzki, Rosina Lhévinne and Irma Wolpe. Although he won First Prizes at the 1966 Busoni Competition in Italy and the 1968 Montréal Piano Competition, it was his 1970 triumph at the International Chopin Competition in Warsaw, where he won the Gold Medal (and remains the single American to have done so), that brought him worldwide recognition as one of the finest pianists of his generation.

Since then, he has made nearly a dozen tours of Poland, where he retains immense personal popularity. Ohlsson was awarded the Avery Fisher Prize in 1994 and received the 1998 University Musical Society Distinguished Artist Award in Ann Arbor, MI. He is the 2014 recipient of the Jean Gimbel Lane Prize in Piano Performance from the Northwestern University Bienen School of Music, and in 2018 , the Polish Deputy Culture Minister awarded him with the Gloria Artis Gold Medal for cultural merit. He is a Steinway Artist and makes his home in San Francisco.

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