The Broad Stage presents an evening with The Takács Quartet, winners of the Grammy Award, Gramophone Classical Music Awards 2021, Chamber category, and Presto Music Classical Recording Award 2021, make their Broad Stage debut on Saturday, March 19 at 7:30PM on the Main Stage.
Hailed as "arguably the greatest string quartet in the world" by The Guardian, they are joined by guest Julien Labro on bandoneón for two new commissions for the Takács by Brazilian-American composer Clarice Assad and Grammy-winner and The National rock band guitarist Bryce Dessner for quintet and three of Labro's own works. The program concludes with Ravel's String Quartet from 1903, the only quartet he ever composed.
The quartet - Edward Dusinberre, violin; Harumi Rhodes, violin; Richard O'Neill, viola; and Andras Fejer, cello - is renowned for the vitality of its interpretations. The Guardian recently commented, "What endures about The Takacs Quartet, year after year, is how equally the four players carry the music". BBC Music Magazine described its recent Dohnanyi recording with pianist Marc Andre Hamelin as "totally compelling, encapsulating a vast array of colors and textures". Based in Boulder at the University of Colorado, the Grammy Award-winning ensemble performs eighty concerts a year worldwide.
Heralded as "the next accordion star," Julien Labro has established himself as the foremost accordion and bandoneón player in both the classical and jazz genres. Deemed to be "a triple threat: brilliant technician, poetic melodist and cunning arranger," his artistry, virtuosity, and creativity as a musician, composer and arranger have earned him international acclaim and continue to astonish audiences worldwide.
Rob Bailis, Artistic and Executive Director of The Broad Stage, says "The world famous, unbelievably superb The Takács Quartet will be giving us a concert that marks the beginning of a multi-year relationship. The violist Richard O'Neill has just joined The Takács Quartet and was an artist-in-residence with us two seasons back. We can't wait to have Richard back with the Takács, and to have them regularly with us at The Broad Stage will be absolutely wonderful." O'Neill won the 2020 Grammy Award for Classical Instrumental Solo.
Tickets starting at $40 are available at
thebroadstage.org, by calling 310.434.3200, and visiting the box office at 1310 11thSt. Santa Monica CA 90401, beginning three hours prior to performance.
During the last year, The Takács Quartet marked the arrival of Grammy-award-winning violist, Richard O'Neill by making two new recordings for Hyperion. Quartets by Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel and
Felix Mendelssohn will be released in the Fall of 2021, followed in 2022 by a disc of Haydn's opp. 42, 77 and 103.
The Takács Quartet was formed in 1975 at the
Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest by Gabor Takács-Nagy, Károly Schranz, Gabor Ormai and András Fejér, while all four were students. It first received international attention in 1977, winning First Prize and the Critics' Prize at the International String Quartet Competition in Evian, France. The Quartet also won the Gold Medal at the 1978 Portsmouth and Bordeaux Competitions and First Prizes at the Budapest International String Quartet Competition in 1978 and the Bratislava Competition in 1981. The Quartet made its North American debut tour in 1982. In 2001 the members of the Takács Quartet were awarded the Order of Merit of the Knight's Cross of the Republic of Hungary, and in March 2011 the Order of Merit Commander's Cross by the President of the Republic of Hungary.
The Takács Quartet continues its role in 2021-2022 as Associate Artists at London's Wigmore Hall, performing four concerts there this season. In addition to many concerts in the U.K., the ensemble will play at prestigious European venues including the Paris Philharmonie, Berlin Konzerthaus, and Teatro Della Pergola, Florence. The Takács will perform throughout North America, including concerts in New York, Boston, Washington DC, Princeton, Ann Arbor, Berkeley, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Vancouver, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Cleveland, and Portland.
In June 2020 The Takács Quartet was featured in the BBC television series Being Beethoven. The ensemble's 2019 cd for Hyperion of piano quintets by Amy Beach and Elgar, with pianist Garrick Ohlsson won a Presto Classical Recording of the Year.
In 2014 the Takács became the first string quartet to be awarded the Wigmore Hall Medal. The Medal, inaugurated in 2007, recognizes major
International Artists who have a strong association with the Hall. Recipients include Andras Schiff, Thomas Quasthoff, Menahem Pressler and Dame
Felicity Lott. In 2012,
Gramophone announced that the Takács was the first string quartet to be inducted into its Hall of Fame, along with such legendary artists as Jascha Heifetz,
Leonard Bernstein and Dame
Janet Baker. The ensemble also won the 2011 Award for Chamber Music and Song presented by the Royal Philharmonic Society in London.
The Takács Quartet is known for innovative programming. The ensemble performed a program inspired by
Philip Roth's novel Everyman with
Meryl Streep at Princeton in 2014, and again with her at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto in 2015. They first performed Everyman at
Carnegie Hall in 2007 with
Philip Seymour Hoffman. They have toured 14 cities with the poet Robert Pinsky, collaborate regularly with the Hungarian Folk group Muzsikas, and in 2010 they collaborated with the Colorado Shakespeare Festival and
David Lawrence Morse on a drama project that explored the composition of Beethoven's last quartets.
The Takács Quartet records for Hyperion Records. The ensemble recently won a Gramophone Classical Music Award 2021 in the Chamber category for their recording of quintets by Amy Beach and Elgar with pianist Garrick Ohlsson. Their discs for Hyperion include string quartets by Haydn, Schubert, Janáček, Smetana, Debussy and Britten, as well as piano quintets by César Franck and Shostakovich (with Marc-André Hamelin), viola quintets by Brahms and Dvorák (with Lawrence Power). For their CDs on the Decca/London label, the Quartet has won three Gramophone Awards, a Grammy Award, three Japanese Record Academy Awards, Disc of the Year at the inaugural BBC Music Magazine Awards, and Ensemble Album of the Year at the Classical Brits.
Based in Boulder at the University of Colorado, the members of The Takács Quartet are Christoffersen Faculty Fellows. The Quartet has helped to develop a string program with a special emphasis on chamber music, where students work in a nurturing environment designed to help them develop their artistry. Through the university, two of the quartet's members benefit from the generous loan of instruments from the Drake Instrument Foundation. The members of the Takács are on the faculty at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, where they run an intensive summer string quartet seminar, and Visiting Fellows at the Guildhall School of Music, London.
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