Pacifica Quartet The Northfield News

The Grammy Award-winning Pacifica Quartet returns to Chandler Music Hall in Randolph on Sunday evening, February 26 at 7:30.

Named Musical America’s 2009 Ensemble of the Year, the Pacifica Quartet has received international acclaim as one of the finest chamber ensembles performing today. According to a reviewer in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, “Ultra-talented string quartets abound these days in a golden age for the genre, but the Pacifica Quartet is perhaps most worthy of carrying that mantle today.”

Recent career honors include appointment as quartet-in-residence at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, the position held for 43 years by the Guarneri String Quartet. This season at the Museum they are performing the complete Beethoven string quartet cycle, and in this their second appearance at Chandler they will perform two of their favorites, the String Quartets Opus 18, #5 in A Major and Opus 132 in a minor. A reception for the artists and the audience follows the performance. The Chandler connection with the Quartet continues this summer, when the second violinist, Sibbi Bernhardsson, appears as a guest artist with the third annual Lyra Summer Music Workshop in Randolph, July 15 through August 4.

The Pacifica Quartet tours extensively throughout the US, Europe and Asia and performs in the world’s major concert halls. The ensemble can also be heard on many of the nation’s most prominent radio broadcasts, including Chicago’s WFMT, Boston’s WGBH, New York’s WNYC, our own Vermont Public Radio, and American Public Media’s Performance Today and St. Paul Sunday.

Formed in 1994, the Pacifica Quartet quickly won chamber music’s top competitions, including the 1998 Naumburg Chamber Music Award. In 2002 the ensemble was honored with Chamber Music America’s Cleveland Quartet Award and appointment to The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s program for gifted young musicians. In 2006, the Pacifica was awarded a prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant, becoming only the second chamber music ensemble to be so honored in the Grant’s long history.

Tickets are available through the Chandler box office at (802) 728-6464 weekdays between the hours of 3 and 6, or online at www.chandler-arts.org. Reserved seating: adults $32, students $11.

This concert is presented by Chandler Center for the Arts, with generous sponsorship support from Vermont Public Radio; It is also made possible in part by the Friends of the Classics at Chandler, and the Max Seaton Charitable Trust. Chandler Music Hall is fully handicapped accessible.