ARTIST SERIES:
Cecilia String Quartet
Friday, May 22, 2009 at 8 pm
Guelph Youth Music Centre, Recital Hall
75 Cardigan Street, Guelph, ON
PROGRAMME
THEODORE DUBOIS: String Quartet No 1*
* This string quartet was written in the late romantic period by Dubois, a french composer mostly know for his keyboard and operatic works. It was recently discovered in the home of his great grandson and we will be recording it, along with his second string quartet, in August.
LIAM WADE: String Quartet No 2 "The Canadian"*
Liam Wade is an American composer currently residing in San Diego. His second string quartet was written for us, hence the nickname "The Canadian". www.liamwade.com
MENDELSSOHN: String Quartet no. 6 in F minor, op. 80
Cecilia String Quartet
Sarah Nematallah (violin) | Min-Jeong Koh (violin) | Caitlin Boyle (viola) | Rebecca Wenham (cello)
Praised for their 'extraordinary commitment and maturity' (Montreal Gazette) and 'talent, passion and mastery' (Jacques Robert, JR Multimedia), the Cecilia String Quartet is one of Canada's most exciting emerging ensembles today. Second Prize winners of the 2008 Osaka International Chamber Music Competition and winners of the 2007 Galaxie Rising Stars Award in Canada, they are currently recipients of the Joseph Fisch and Joyce Axelrod String Quartet residency at San Diego State University in association with the La Jolla Music Society. Most recently, the quartet has won First Prize and the Melpomene Prize at the Rutenberg Competition. They are also pursuing Artist Diplomas at the Schulich School of Music at McGill University, under the guidance of Andre Roy.
Since their inception in 2004, the quartet has held residencies at Laurier University, The Glenn Gould School of the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, and at the University of Toronto where the quartet was formed. Their debut performance at the Arts and Letters Club in Toronto was met with high praise, and their first season culminated in the receipt of the Felix Galimir Award for Chamber Music Excellence after only 6 months as a quartet. Subsequently, they participated in the Juilliard String Quartet Seminar in New York, the Stanford Chamber Music Seminar in California, and the Schleswig-Holstein Chamber Music Festival in Germany. One of two quartets invited to attend the 2006 Deer Valley Music Festival's Emerging Quartets and Composers Program in Utah, the CSQ worked extensively with the Muir Quartet and Joan Tower to premiere Belinda Reynolds' "Static Motion", a work commissioned for the CSQ by the festival. In summer 2007, the CSQ were fellows at the Aspen Music Festival and School in the prestigious Advanced String Quartet Studies Program.
The CSQ has performed across North America on series such as the Barrie Colours of Music Festival, the Toronto Music Garden, the Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber Music Society, Chamber Music Hamilton, the Northern Lights Music Festival in Ajijic, Mexico, and the Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival. They also recently toured Ontario, Quebec, and British Columbia with Jeunesses Musicales Canada on their Desjardins Concert Series. This past summer the CSQ were Shouse Artists at the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival in Michigan and the Resident String Quartet at the Austin Chamber Music Festival in Texas. Upcoming highlights include a debut performance for the La Jolla Music Society in California and the third of a three-concert appearance on Music Toronto's Discovery Series.
The Cecilia String Quartet takes its name from St. Cecilia, the patron saint of music. They have worked with members of the Juilliard, Emerson, Tokyo, Takacs, St. Lawrence, Ying, American, Penderecki, and Orford Quartets. Members of the CSQ have attended the University of Toronto, the Glenn Gould School of the Royal Conservatory of Music, the HARID Conservatory of Music, the New England Conservatory, the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, and the Hochschule fur Musik und Theatre Munchen in Munich, Germany. Min-Jeong Koh plays on a violin made by Samuel Zygmuntovich, on loan from the Banff Centre and would like to thank them for their generosity and support.
QUOTES
"Cecilia : Excellent. During this hour-long, intermission-free concert, we are acquainted with a very serious and a tremendously coherent ensemble whose astounding complicity, tuning, ideas, and focus capture the audience." Claude Gingras (La Presse Montreal)
"Their Shostakovich (the Ninth Quartet, Op.117) was harrowing, with the pizzicato chords of the fourth movement zinging like electrical shocks and the recitative-like passages crying out from the depths of the soul..." Tamara Bernstein (La Scena Musicale)
"Right from the start of Beethoven's fiery Quartet Op.59 No.2, we heard a passionate tone and sure sense of timing... the four players found a competitive style perfectly attuned to the music." Arthur Kaptainis (Montreal Gazette)
"Their Schumann (String Quartet in A Op.41 No.3) was a romantic tapestry spun out with equal parts of intensity and lyricism." Lawrence B. Johnson (The Detroit News)
"There was no want of energy or musicality. Technical values like exactness of ensemble, balance and intonation were admirable, if not entirely unblemished. The Cecilias evinced an excellent understanding of the composer's thought world... It was a stunning performance by a quartet of great expectations." Richard Todd (The Ottawa Citizen)
LINKS
Ceclia String Quartet web site
may 14 – valerie tryon | may 15 - marion samuel-stevens & william shookhoff
may 21 – festival trio | may 22 - cecilia string quartet