The Quatuor Ébène performs with the Union College Concert Series in Memorial Chapel on Thursday, November 13 at 7:30 p.m.
One of the most sought-after quartets in the world, the Parisian string quartet makes its highly-anticipated series debut en route to Carnegie Hall. They perform a program featuring Mozart’s Quartet in E-flat Major, K. 428, Bartók’s Quartet No. 4, and Mendelssohn’s Quartet in A Minor, Op. 13. Equally at home playing music by the great classical masters as they are in improvising on jazz and pop standards, the quartet typically ends with genre-crossing encores.
After its dramatic 2004 triumph at the ARD International Music Competition in Munich, where the ensemble was also awarded five additional special prizes, Quatuor Ébène went on to win the Forberg-Schneider Foundation’s Belmont Prize in 2005. Since 2009, the quartet has recorded exclusively for Virgin Classics, winning most every major European recording price including ‘Recording of the Year’ by Gramophone and ECHO Klassik, and the Choc du Monde de la Musique, among many others. A jazz and world music album, entitled Fiction, was released by the quartet in fall of 2010 and quickly climbed the charts, earning the ensemble another ECHO Klassik award. A second jazz CD entitled Brazil was released in early 2014.
Highlights of the Quatuor Ébène’s 2014-2015 North American tour include performances in New York (Carnegie Hall), Washington (Kennedy Center), Philadelphia (Kimmel Center), Atlanta (Spivey Hall), and Princeton University among others.
Individual tickets are $25 or $10 for students. Subscription packages offer significant savings. For information, call (518) 388-6080 or visit http://www.unioncollegeconcerts.org.