CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS
Miró Quartet
Part of Salon Encores.
Performers
Miró Quartet
·· Daniel Ching, Violin
·· William Fedkenheuer, Violin
·· John Largess, Viola
·· Joshua Gindele, Cello
Program
ALL-BEETHOVEN PROGRAMString Quartet in C-sharp Minor, Op. 131
String Quartet in B-flat Major, Op. 130, with Große Fuge, Op. 133
Encore:
Lento assai, cantante e tranquillo from String Quartet in F Major, Op. 135
Event Duration
The printed program will last approximately two hours, including one 20-minute intermission.At a Glance
The Quartet in B-flat Major, Op. 130—one of three commissioned by Prince Nikolai Golitsïn, Beethoven’s Russian patron—is laid out in six movements of strikingly diverse characters. In its first incarnation, the quartet culminated in a resplendent display of contrapuntal fireworks. Under prodding from his publisher, however, Beethoven spun the Große Fuge off as a separate opus and replaced it with a more conventional, listener-friendly Allegro.
Bios
Miró Quartet
The Miró Quartet is one of America's most celebrated and dedicated string quartets. For
the past 20 years, it has performed throughout the world on the most prestigious concert
stages, earning accolades from critics and audiences alike. Based in Austin, Texas, and
thriving in the area's storied music scene, the Miró Quartet takes pride in finding new
ways to communicate with audiences of all backgrounds, while cultivating the longstanding
tradition of chamber music.
Highlights of recent seasons include a highly anticipated and sold-out return to Carnegie
Hall to perform Beethoven's Op. 59 quartets; a performance at the Saratoga Performing Arts
Center as part of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center's inaugural residency; the
world premiere of a new concerto for string quartet and orchestra by Pulitzer Prize-winning
composer Kevin Puts; performances of the complete Beethoven cycle at the Orcas Island
Chamber Music Festival and at Tokyo's Suntory Hall; and debuts in 2014-2015 in Korea,
Singapore, and at the Hong Kong International Chamber Music Festival.
The quartet's 2016-2017 season features collaborations with David Shifrin, Martin Beaver,
Clive Greensmith, André Watts, and Wu Han, as well as a performance of the complete
Beethoven cycle in just nine days for Chamber Music Tulsa. During its 2015-2016 season, the
quartet returned to the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, performing Beethoven in
Alice Tully Hall and the complete cycle of Ginastera's quartets at the Rose Studio; and
performed a late-Schubert quartet cycle for the prestigious Slee Series in Buffalo, New
York.
A favorite of summer chamber music festivals, the Miró Quartet has recently performed at
La Jolla Music Society's SummerFest, Chamber Music Northwest, Santa Fe Chamber Music
Festival, OK Mozart, and Music@Menlo. The quartet regularly collaborates with pianist Jon
Kimura Parker, percussionist Colin Currie, and mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke.
Formed in 1995, the Miró Quartet was awarded first prize at several national and
international competitions that included the Banff International String Quartet Competition
and the Naumburg Chamber Music Competition. Deeply committed to music education, members of
the quartet have given master classes at universities and conservatories around the world.
Since 2003, the Miró has served as the quartet-in-residence at the Sarah and Ernest Butler
School of Music at the University of Texas at Austin. In 2005, the quartet became the first
ensemble to be awarded the coveted Avery Fisher Career Grant.
Having released nine celebrated recordings, the Miró Quartet recently produced an Emmy
Award-winning multimedia project titled Transcendence. A work with visual and
audio elements available on live stream, CD, and Blu-ray, Transcendence
encompasses philanthropy and documentary filmmaking and is centered around a performance of
Schubert's Quartet in G Major, D. 887, on rare Stradivarius instruments. The quartet
records independently and makes its music available on a global scale through Apple Music,
Amazon, Spotify, Pandora, and YouTube.
The Miró Quartet took its name and its inspiration from Spanish artist Joan Miró, whose
Surrealist works--with subject matter drawn from the realm of memory, dreams, and
imaginative fantasy--are some of the most groundbreaking, influential, and admired of the
20th century.
Visit miroquartet.com for more information.