New Esterházy Quartet Vienna 1784—Quartet Party at Storace Friday 17 November 8:00pm The Berkeley Hillside Club 2286 Cedar Street Berkeley 94709 Info: 510-845-1350
Admission: $25 general, $20 students & seniors, $10 Hillside Club members
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The Berkeley Hillside Club is pleased to present the New Esterházy Quartet with a wonderful program featuring works by Haydn, Ditters, Vanhal and Mozart. The artists of this celebrated San Francisco Bay Area string ensemble are internationally-known period instrument and chamber music specialists, and have gained a well-deserved reputation for virtuoso playing and interesting programs. Don't miss these remarkable artists performing in our historic and acoustically-excellent hall.
The Artists: Lisa Weiss & Kati Kyme - violins Anthony Martin - viola William Skeen - 'cello About the Concert:
The New Esterházy Quartet will be partying the way Mozart and Haydn did with their friends in Vienna. One night, in 1784, there was a party with great music and food at the house of Stephen Storace. Before everyone sat down for a delicious dinner, Mozart and Haydn played string quartets together with violin virtuoso Ditters and composer Vanhal. The New Esterházy Quartet’s program features four string quartets from the 1780s, one by each of the composers Mozart, Haydn, Ditters, and Vanhal.
The Program: Quartet, Op. 33, No. 4 in Bb - Joseph Haydn Quartet No. 4 in C (1788) - Karl Ditters Quartet in G (1786) - Jan Baptist Vanhal Quartet in G, K387 (1782) -Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
The Ensemble: Founded in 2006 and currently in its ninh year of subscription concerts in San Francisco, Berkeley and Palo Alto, the New Esterházy Quartet continues to present masterworks of the classical period alongside intriguing works from less-familiar composers. With Haydn's 68 quartets as its core repertoire, NEQ is increasingly recognized as one of the world's top period-instrument string quartets. The ensemble has been presented by the San Francisco Early Music Society, Arizona Early Music Society, Carmel Chamber Music Society, has performed in New York and Los Angeles, and appeared as a Main Stage event for the 2012 Berkeley Festival & Exhibition. NEQ was also selected for Early Music America's Touring Artists Roster and has received two grants from the San Francisco Friends of Chamber Music. Recent seasons have featured works by pupils and admirers of Haydn, late quartets of Schubert and Beethoven, and novel explorations of early Bartók and Schoenberg. January 2014 saw the world premiere of Esterházy, book II, written for the ensemble by noted New York composer Paul Brantley. NEQ's 2014 summer project was the complete Mozart "Haydn" Quartets, performed at Berkeley's historic Hillside Club in a three-concert Amadè-Athon. The coming season will include an appearance on Pittsburgh's prestigious "Renaissance and Baroque" series in January and a summer cycle of the late Beethoven quartets. Four Haydn recordings are currently available, and a world premiere recording of a mid-19th century string quartet by Hungarian composer Imre Székely is near release. The members of NEQ are internationally-known period-instrument and chamber music specialists: Kati Kyme and Lisa Weiss, violins, violist Anthony Martin, and cellist William Skeen. As individuals, the players have performed and recorded in the top echelon of early music ensembles worldwide. In addition to many years of musical collaboration in Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, American Bach Soloists, and a long list of renowned chamber ensembles, these four Bay Area musicians have enjoyed decades of friendship and shared experience. Their history as both colleagues and friends endows the quartet with an unusual commonality of musical language and gesture, and provides a strong foundation for a unique and original ensemble voice. In addition to concert appearances, NEQ enjoys performing in private homes and other intimate settings where the traditional experience of true chamber