Segerstrom Center for the Arts presents returning artists Takács Quartet for one night only in the Samueli Theater on January 27, 2023 at 7:30pm.
Entering their 48th season of performing, longtime audience favorite Takács Quartet is returning to Samueli Theater as part of this season’s Chamber Music Series.
The program will include Britten: String Quartet No. 1, Bartok: String Quartet No. 6, Dvorak: String Quartet in G Major, Op. 106.
The quartet—Edward Dusinberre, violin; Harumi Rhodes, violin; Richard O’Neill, viola; and Andras Fejer, cello—is renowned for the vitality of its interpretations. This premier chamber music ensemble won their 4th Gramophone Classical Music Award for Chamber Music in 2021 and continues to produce incredible recordings of chamber music. Takács Quartet is the first-string quartet to be inducted into the Gramophone Hall of Fame and this one-night-only concert is not to be missed.
This performance includes a pre-show talk with musicologist Dr. Byron Adams and will make for a perfect night of classical music. The pre-show performance will begin at 6:45 p.m.
The title of the performance, Musical Voyages, comes from Edward Dusinberre’s new book Distant Melodies: Music in Search of Home. The pieces on the program were written by composers during periods of their lives shaped by departures and homecomings, themes explored in Dusinberre’s book.
About Edward Dusinberre
As first violinist of the Takács Quartet, Edward Dusinberre has won a Grammy and awards from Gramophone Magazine, the Japanese Recording Academy, Chamber Music America, and the Royal Philharmonic Society. Outside of the quartet he has made a recording of Beethoven’s violin sonatas nos. 9 (Kreutzer) and 10 on the Decca label. Dusinberre is also an author. His second book Distant Melodies: Music in Search of Home is published by Faber and University of Chicago Press in the Fall of 2022. The book explores the themes of displacement and return in the lives and specific chamber works of Dvorák, Elgar, Bartók and Britten. His first book Beethoven for a Later Age: The Journey of a String Quartet, takes the reader inside the life of a string quartet, melding music history and memoir as it explores the circumstances surrounding the composition of Beethoven’s quartets and the Takács Quartet’s experiences rehearsing and performing this music. The book won the Royal Philharmonic Society’s 2016 Creative Communication Award. Announcing the award, the RPS Committee said: “Few have told so well of the musician’s life or offered such illuminating insights to players and listeners alike.” Dusinberre lives in Boulder, where he is Artist-in-Residence and a Christoffersen Fellow at the University of Colorado. In 2017 he was appointed a member of the faculty at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara and is a Visiting Fellow at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
About Harumi Rhodes
Acclaimed by the New York Times as a “deeply expressive violinist,” Harumi Rhodes has gained broad recognition as a multifaceted musician with a distinctive and sincere musical voice. Her generosity of spirit on stage is contagious, making her one of the most sought-after violinists of her generation. Recent solo engagements include performances of Bernstein Serenade, Beethoven Violin Concerto, Mozart Violin Concerto No 5, and Vivaldi Four Seasons with the Vermont Mozart Festival Orchestra. In addition to being a founding member of the Naumburg Award winning ensemble, Trio Cavatina, she has performed regularly with Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and Musicians from Marlboro. An avid supporter of contemporary music, she has been actively involved in commissioning and premiering new works as an artist member of the Boston Chamber Music Society, East Coast Chamber Orchestra(ECCO), and Music from Copland House. Recent discography includes Milton Babbitt’s String Quartet No. 6 (Tzadik); The Five Borough Songbook, including 20 different composers and commissions (GPR Records); Compadrazgo, a compilation of chamber works by Gabriela Lena Frank (Albany Records); Secret Alchemy, with ensemble works by Pierre Jalbert (Copland House Blend); and Clean Plates Don’t Lie, featuring new vocal chamber music works with texts from Chef Dan Barber and the sustainable food movement (Centaur). Rhodes has served as Head of Strings and Chamber Music at Syracuse University, Assistant Violin Faculty at the Juilliard School, and most recently as Assistant Professor of Violin at the University of Colorado-Boulder.
About Richard O’Neill
Newly appointed violist of the Takács Quartet, Richard O’Neill has distinguished himself as one of the great instrumentalists of his generation.
An EMMY Award winner, two-time GRAMMY nominee and Avery Fisher Career Grant recipient, he has appeared as soloist with the world’s top orchestras including the London, Los Angeles, Seoul Philharmonics, the BBC, Hiroshima, Korean Symphonies, the Kremerata Baltica, Moscow, Vienna and Wurtemburg Chamber Orchestras, Alte Musik Koln, and has worked with distinguished musicians and conductors including Andrew Davis, Vladimir Jurowski, Francois Xavier Roth, and Yannick Nezet-Seguin. An Artist of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and Principal Violist of Camerata Pacifica, for thirteen seasons he served as Artistic Director of DITTO, his South Korean chamber music project, leading the ensemble on international tours to China and Japan and introducing tens of thousands to music.
A Universal Music/Deutsche Grammophon recording artist, he has made 10 solo albums and many other chamber music recordings, earning multiple platinum discs. Composers Lera Auerbach, Elliott Carter, Paul Chihara, John Harbison, and Huang Ruo have written works for him. He has appeared on major TV networks in South Korea and enjoyed huge success with his 2004 KBS documentary ‘Human Theater’ which was viewed by over 12 million people, and his 2013 series ‘Hello?! Orchestra’ which featured his work with a multicultural youth orchestra for MBC and led to an International Emmy in Arts Programming and a feature length film.
He serves as Goodwill Ambassador for the Korean Red Cross, The Special Olympics, UNICEF, and OXFAM and serves on the faculty of the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara.
About András Fejér
András Fejér(cello) was born in 1955 into a musical family. His father was a cellist and conductor, and his mother was a pianist. He began playing the cello at the age of seven, because as legend has it, his father was unwilling to listen to a violin-upstart practicing. Since an early age, his parents have held string quartet weekends, which, for the young cellist were the most memorable of occasions, if not for the music, then for the glorious desserts his mother used to prepare for those sessions.
After attending a music high school, Mr. Fejér was admitted to the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in 1975, where he was a pupil of Ede Banda, András Mihály, Ferenc Rados and György Kurtág. That same year he founded the Takács String Quartet with three fellow classmates. Although the quartet has been his sole professional focus since then, he does perform as a soloist occasionally as well.
Mr. Fejér is married to a literature teacher. They have three children and live in the Rocky Mountains where they enjoy year-round sunshine in beautiful Boulder, Colorado. When he is not on tour he enjoys reading, photography, tennis, and hiking.
Tickets start at $29 and are available at online at SCFTA.org, at the Box Office at 600 Town Center Drive in Costa Mesa, or by calling (714) 556-2787. For inquiries about group ticket discounts for 10 or more, call the Group Services office at (714) 755-0236.