TAKACS QUARTET Comes to BroadStage as Part of 2023 California Festival

After a sold-out appearance in 2022, audience favorite Takács Quartet returns to BroadStage on Friday, November 17 at 7:30 pm with an exquisite program of the Haydn String Quartet No. 63 in B-flat Major “Sunrise”; Beethoven String Quartet No. 8 in E minor “Razumovsky”; and a newly commissioned work “Flow” from Los Angeles native and accomplished violist Nokuthula Ngwenyama composed for Takács Quartet, as part of the 2023 California Festival.

As they enter their 49th season of live performance, this special evening of music is in celebration of the collaborative and innovative spirit that thrives in California. 
 
“Flow,” is a meditation on the theme of climate change. The composer says, “We, as biological creatures, flow through life. Conversely, the flow of existence is temporarily housed in all living creatures each generation. Everything in nature flows and develops through time. Individual consciousness is a small part of all collectively lived experience. When Takács Quartet asked me to write them a piece about the natural world, I researched seasonal starling murmurations, black hole collisions, protein music (convertine protein sequences or genes to musical notes), Sars-Covid-2 Omicron and “Kraken” variants, peat fields as nature's gift to carbon reclamation, and madagascar lemur song and rhythms.” 
 
California Festival November 3-19 is a two-week, statewide festival of new music from around the world, showcasing today's most compelling and forward-looking voices in performances of over 200 works written within the past five years. California Festival brings together organizations and ensembles from throughout the state of California including symphony orchestras, chamber music groups, jazz ensembles, choirs, and more, all performing new music. California Festival Music Directors are Gustavo Dudamel, Rafael Payare, and Esa-Pekka Salonen.  www.cafestival.org
 
Takács Quartet members Edward Dusinberre, Harumi Rhodes (violins), Richard O'Neill (viola) and András Fejér (cello) are excited about the 2023-2024 season that features varied projects including a new work written for them. Nokuthula Ngwenyama composed ‘Flow,' an exploration and celebration of the natural world. The work was commissioned by nine concert presenters throughout the USA. July sees the release of a new recording of works by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and Dvořák for Hyperion Records, while later in the season the quartet will release works by Schubert including his final quartet in G major. In the Spring of 2024 the ensemble will perform and record piano quintets by Price and Dvořák with long-time chamber music partner Marc-Andre Hamelin.

As Associate Artists at London's Wigmore Hall the Takács will perform four concerts featuring works by Hough, Price, Janacek, Schubert and Beethoven. During the season the ensemble will play at other prestigious European venues including Berlin, Geneva, Linz, Innsbruck, Cambridge and St. Andrews. The Takács will appear at the Adams Chamber Music Festival in New Zealand. The group's North American engagements include concerts in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington DC, Vancouver, Ann Arbor, Phoenix, Berkeley, Los Angeles, Portland, Cleveland, Santa Fe and Stanford. The ensemble will perform two Bartók cycles at San Jose State University and Middlebury College and appear for the first time at the Virginia Arts Festival with pianist Olga Kern.

Gramophone proclaims Nokuthula Ngwenyama as “providing solidly shaped music of bold mesmerizing character.” She gained international prominence winning the Primrose International Viola Competition at 16 and has since crafted a career as a  soloist with orchestras around the world, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic. She has appeared in recital at the Kennedy Center, Japan's Suntory Hall, the Louvre, and the White House. She is an alumna of Crossroads School for Arts and Sciences in Santa Monica, CA, and the Colburn School and attended the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris as a Fulbright Scholar. She also has a Master of Theological Studies degree from Harvard University. She is a past president of the American Viola Society and director of the Primrose International Viola Competition.
 
Tickets starting at $50 are available at https://broadstage.org/ or by calling 310.434.3200. The presenting patron sponsor for this event is The Keston Family. The classical series sponsor is Colburn Foundation.

"Flow" is co-commissioned by BroadStage (Santa Monica, CA), Cal Performances (Berkeley, CA), Friends of Chamber Music (Portland, OR), Shriver Hall Concert Series (Baltimore, MD), Boston Celebrity Series, 92nd Street Y (New York, NY) Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Capital Region Classical (Schenectady, NY), University Musical Society, (Ann Arbor, Michigan).

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