Having celebrated its 25th Anniversary in 2006, the
Alexander String Quartet has performed in the major music capitals of
five continents, securing its standing among the world’s premier
ensembles. Widely admired for its interpretations of Beethoven, Mozart,
and Shostakovich, the quartet has also established itself as an
important advocate of new music through over 25 commissions and
numerous premiere performances. In 1999 BMG Classics released the
quartet’s nine-CD set of the Beethoven cycle on its Arte Nova label to
tremendous critical acclaim. The FoghornClassics label released a
three-CD set (Homage) of the
Mozart quartets dedicated to Haydn in 2004. Foghorn released the a
six-CD album (Fragments) of
the complete Shostakovich quartets in 2006 and 2007, and a recording of
the complete quartets of Pulitzer prize-winning San Francisco composer,
Wayne Peterson, was released in the spring of 2008. A new
recording of the Beethoven cycle was released in June 2009. The
Alexander String Quartet is a major artistic presence in its home base
of San Francisco, serving there as directors of the Morrison Chamber
Music Center at the School of Music and Dance in the College of
Creative Arts at San Francisco State University and Ensemble in
Residence of San Francisco Performances.
The Alexander String Quartet’s annual calendar of concerts includes
engagements at major halls throughout North America and Europe. The
quartet has appeared at Lincoln Center, the 92nd Street Y, and the
Metropolitan Museum in New York City; Jordan Hall in Boston; the
Library of Congress and Dumbarton Oaks in Washington; and chamber music
societies and universities across the North American continent. Recent
overseas tours have brought them to the U.K., the Czech Republic, the
Netherlands, Italy, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, France,
Greece, the Republic of Georgia, Argentina, and the Philippines. The
many distinguished artists to collaborate with the Alexander String
Quartet include pianists Menahem Pressler, Gary Graffman, Roger
Woodward, and Jeremy Menuhin; clarinetists Eli Eban, Charles Neidich,
Joan Enric Lluna, and Richard Stoltzman; cellists Lynn Harrell and
Sadao Harada; soprano Elly Ameling; and saxophonists Branford Marsalis
and David Sánchez.
The Alexander String Quartet’s 25th anniversary was also the 20th
anniversary of its association with New York City’s Baruch College as
Ensemble in Residence. This landmark was celebrated through a
performance by the ensemble of the Shostakovich string quartet cycle at
Engelman Recital Hall in the Baruch Performing Art Center in April
2006. Of these performances, The New
York Times wrote, “The intimacy of the music came through with
enhanced power and poignancy in the Alexander quartet’s vibrant,
probing, assured and aptly volatile performances. … Seldom have these
anguished, playful, ironic and masterly works seemed so profoundly
personal.” The Alexander was also awarded Presidential Medals in honor
of their longstanding commitment to the Arts and Education and in
celebration of their two decades of service to Baruch College.
Highlights of the 2009-2010 include a multiple concert series of music
by Dvořák for San Francisco Performances, of Mendelssohn and
Schumann at the Baruch Performing Arts Center in New York City, of
Brahms at the Scottsdale Center for the Arts, and a continuing
Beethoven cycle for Mondavi Center. The quartet returns to the Library
of Congress for a pair of performances, one an all-Beethoven program in
collaboration with the lecturer Robert Greenberg and the other a
program of 20th and 21st century repertory performed in collaboration
with the Afiara String Quartet. The quartet will premiere a new work
from commissioned for them from Jeeyoung Kim for San Francisco
Performances in April 2010. They also continue their annual residencies
at Allegheny College and St. Lawrence University.
The quartet’s recent premieres include Rise Chanting by Augusta Read
Thomas, commissioned for the Alexander by the Krannert Center and
premiered there and simulcast by WFMT radio in Chicago. The quartet has
also premiered String Quartets Nos. 2 and 3 by Wayne Peterson and works
by Ross Bauer (commissioned by Stanford University), Richard Festinger,
David Sheinfeld, Hi Kyung Kim, and a Koussevitzky commission by Robert
Greenberg. Among the quartet’s more unusual collaborations has been
numerous performances of Eddie Sauter’s seminal Third Stream work, Focus, in collaboration with both
Branford Marsalis and David Sánchez.
The Alexander String Quartet was formed in New York City in 1981 and
the following year became the first string quartet to win the Concert
Artists Guild Competition. In 1985, the quartet captured international
attention as the first and only American quartet to win the London
International String Quartet Competition, receiving both the jury’s
highest award and the Audience Prize. In May of 1995, Allegheny College
awarded Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degrees to the members of the
quartet in recognition of their unique contribution to the arts.
Honorary degrees were conferred on the ensemble by St. Lawrence
University in May 2000.
The Alexander String Quartet performs on the Ellen M. Egger Quartet of
instruments, built in 1987 by the American maker Francis Kuttner.
[June 2009]