Brentano Quartet and Cellist Kannen Play Schubert and New Work March 27
March 10, 2008
The Brentano String Quartet, joined for several works by cellist Michael Kannen, performs a quintet by Franz Schubert, madrigals from Italy and a commissioned work inspired by Don Quixote in a performance at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, March 27, in Penn State's Schwab Auditorium.
The program features Quijotadas, a new Gabriela Lena Frank composition created expressly for Brentano and co-commissioned by the Center for the Performing Arts at Penn State through its membership in the Music Accord national presenter consortium. Kannen joins the quartet to perform two of Italian composer Carlo Gesualdo's late-Renaissance madrigals arranged for quintet and Schubert's Quintet for Strings in C Major, Op. 163 (D. 956).
Tickets for the Center for the Performing Arts presentation are $31 for an adult, $14 for a University Park student and $24 for a person 18 and younger. Buy tickets online at www.cpa.psu.edu or by phone at 814-863-0255. Outside the local calling area, dial 1-800-ARTS-TIX. Tickets are also available at four State College locations: Eisenhower Auditorium (8 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays), Penn State Tickets Downtown (10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday), Bryce Jordan Center (10 a.m. to 6 p.m. weekdays) and HUB-Robeson Center (11 a.m. to 2 p.m. weekdays when Penn State classes are in session).
The quartet–violinists Mark Steinberg and Serena Canin, violist Misha Amory and cellist Nina Maria Lee–is the resident ensemble at Princeton University. The group has toured throughout North America, Europe, Australia and Japan and performed in the most prestigious venues.
"Their music making is private, delicate and fresh," a critic for The New York Times writes about Brentano, "but by its very intimacy and importance it seizes attention." A London Independent reviewer calls the quartet's playing "passionate, uninhibited and spellbinding."
Kannen was a founding member of Brentano who performed as part of the quartet for seven years. He plays regularly with flutist Paula Robison and harpsichordist Kenneth Cooper. The cellist is the director of chamber music at The Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
American composer and pianist Frank is known for incorporating Latino/Latin American folk music, mythology and poetry into Western classical forms. One of the leading American composers of her generation, Frank has created music that is "bursting with fresh originality" (Los Angeles Times) and "brilliantly effective" (The New York Times). Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra's Don Quixote inspired Frank's Quijotadas for string quartet. Quijotadas, Spanish for extravagant delusions in the quixotic spirit, includes five movements.
Visit www.cpa.psu.edu/previews to read more about the musicians, the composers and the program.
WPSU-FM is the media sponsor. Artistic Viewpoints, an informal moderated discussion featuring one or more of the visiting artists, is offered in Schwab Auditorium one hour before the performance and is free for ticket holders. A grant from the Penn State Student Activities Fee Funds makes University Park student prices possible.
Contact: Laura Sullivan, 814-863-6379