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Juilliard String Quartet

When: Saturday, February 25th - 8pm
Where: Washington Irving High School		 BACK


Juilliard String Quartet 

"This quartet remains the standard by which all other quartets must be judged." - The Los Angeles Times 



The Program:

STRAVINSKY: Three Pieces for String Quartet (1914, rev. 1918)
JANACEK: Quartet No. 1 “Kreutzer”
MOZART: Quartet in A Major, K. 464



The Artists:

The Juilliard String Quartet is internationally renowned and admired for performances characterized by a clarity of structure, beauty of sound, purity of line and an extraordinary unanimity of purpose. Celebrated for its performances of works by composers as diverse as Beethoven, Schubert, Bartók and Elliott Carter, it has long been recognized as the quintessential American string quartet.

As Quartet-in-Residence at New York City's Juilliard School, the Juilliard String Quartet is widely admired for its seminal influence on aspiring string players around the world. The Quartet continues to play an important role in the formation of new American ensembles and was instrumental in the formation of the Alexander, American, Concord, Emerson, La Salle, New World, Mendelssohn, Tokyo, Brentano, Lark, St. Lawrence, Shanghai and Colorado string quartets.

In its history, the Juilliard String Quartet has performed a comprehensive repertoire of some 500 works, ranging from the great classical composers to masters of the current century. It was the first ensemble to play all six Bartók quartets in the United States, and it was through the group's performances that the quartets of Arnold Schoenberg were rescued from obscurity. An ardent champion of contemporary American music, the Quartet has premiered more than 60 compositions of American composers, including works by some of America's finest jazz musicians.

The ensemble has been associated with Sony Classical, in its various incarnations, since 1949. This season saw the digital release of classic JSQ recordings on iTunes. In celebration of the Quartet's 50th anniversary, Sony released seven CDs containing previously unreleased material as well as notable performances from the Quartet's award-winning discography. With more than 100 releases to its credit, the ensemble is one of the most widely recorded string quartets of our time. Its recordings of the complete Beethoven quartets, the complete Schoenberg quartets, and the Debussy and Ravel string quartets have all received Grammy Awards. Inducted into the Hall of Fame of the National Academy for Recording Arts and Sciences in 1986 for its recording of the complete Bartók string quartets, the Juilliard Quartet was awarded the Deutsche Schallplattenkritik Prize in 1993 for Lifetime Achievement in the recording industry. In 1994, its recording of quartets by Ravel, Debussy, and Dutilleux was chosen by the Times of London as one of the 100 best classical CDs ever recorded.