Sunday, October 20, 2024, 7 p.m.
Nicholas Kitchen and Kristopher Tong, violin; Melissa Reardon, viola; Yeesun Kim, cello
6:00 PM – Pre-concert talk by Christopher Costanza, Cellist of the St. Lawrence String Quartet, Artist in Residence, Lecturer, Stanford University
7:00 PM – Concert
9:00 PM – Celebrate with a complimentary glass of wine and dessert!
About the Borromeo String Quartet
Each visionary performance of the award-winning Borromeo String Quartet (BSQ) strengthens and deepens its reputation as one of the most important ensembles of our time. Admired and sought after for both its fresh interpretations of the classical music canon and its championing of works by 20th and 21st century composers, the ensemble has been hailed for its “edge-of-the- seat performances,” by the Boston Globe, which called it “simply the best.”
Inspiring audiences for more than 25 years, Borromeo has been ensemble-in-residence at Boston’s New England Conservatory of Music and Taos School of Music summer program, and continues to be a pioneer in its use of technology. BSQ has the trailblazing distinction of being the first-string quartet to utilize laptop computers on the concert stage. Reading music this way helps push artistic boundaries, allowing the artists to perform solely from 4-part scores and composers’ manuscripts, a revealing and metamorphic experience which these dedicated musicians now teach to students around the world. As the New York Times noted, “The digital tide washing over society is lapping at the shores of classical music. The Borromeo players have embraced it in their daily musical lives like no other major chamber music group.” Moreover, the Quartet often leads discussions enhanced by projections of handwritten manuscripts, investigating with the audience the creative process of the composer.
The multi-award winning BSQ’s repertoire includes highly lauded in-depth performances and lectures of the Bartók String Quartets; the complete Beethoven cycle and the dramatic discoveries within the manuscripts; the Shostakovich Cycle and those of Mendelssohn, Dvořák, Brahms, Schumann, Schoenberg, Janáček, Lera Auerbach, Tchaikovsky, and Gunther Schuller. The Quartet has collaborated with some of this generation’s most important composers, including Gunther Schuller, John Cage, György Ligeti, Steve Reich, Aaron Jay Kernis, Osvaldo Golijov, Jennifer Higdon, Steve Mackey, John Harbison, Sebastian Currier, and Leon Kirchner.
The Borromeo has performed on major concert stages across the globe, including appearances at Carnegie Hall, the Berlin Philharmonie, Wigmore Hall, Suntory Hall (Tokyo), the Concertgebouw, Seoul Arts Center, Shanghai Oriental Arts Center, the Incontri in Terra di Siena Chamber Music Festival in Tuscany, Kammermusik Basel (Switzerland), the Prague Spring Festival, and the Haydn Festival in Eisenstadt. The ensemble continues to perform violinist Nicholas Kitchen’s transcriptions of Bach’s Goldberg Variations and the Well-Tempered Clavier Bk. I; the BSQ released a critically praised recording of the Well-Tempered Clavier Bk. 1 which hit the billboard charts.
Program
J.S. Bach: Prelude and Fugue in E-flat/D-sharp minor from Book 1, arr. Nicholas Kitchen
Eleanor Alberga: Remember for String Quartet
Ludwig van Beethoven: String Quartet No. 16 in F Major, Op. 135
Jean Sibelius: String Quartet in D minor, Op. 56, “Voces intimae”
Tickets
Single tickets will go on sale August 15.
Ticket Pricing: $62 (adult), $60 (senior, 62+) and $30 (age 30 and under). To purchase tickets, call the Box Office at (650) 762-1130 or order online.
Venue Details
Music at Kohl Mansion, 2750 Adeline Drive, Burlingame, CA.