This concert features the return of the amazing Arabella (String) Quartet.
Join us in-person or on livestream!
About The Arabella String Quartet
The members of the Arabella quartet hail from around the globe and first met at Yale University, where Causa and Kwok were serving on the faculty. A veritable United Nations of chamber music, they represent Denmark, Australia, Italy and France and carry on the pedigree of great European traditions and masters—the Paris Conservatoire, the University for Music and the Performing Arts Vienna, and the Menuhin Academy—as well as the influence of celebrated American ensembles, such as the Guarneri, Tokyo, and Juilliard quartets. This mélange of musical training and backgrounds imbues their performances with distinctive freshness, inventiveness and musical depth. In recent seasons the quartet has performed for Charleston Music Fest, SC; the Chelsea Music Festival, NYC; the Hammond Performing Arts Series Temple Emanuel Chamber Series, Bynum Recital Series, Mistral Music in MA; Cosmos Club and Kenwood Chamber Society Series, Washington DC. The quartet remained committed to their audiences through the global pandemic with high-quality pre-recorded concerts and live-streams. The Arabella Quartet’s debut CD, titled In the Moment was released by Naxos Records in May 2017. An innovative program that explores time, place and mood through a series of short pieces, the disc was named Album of the Week by Classic FM who declared it, “an album well worth dipping into, exceptionally well played.” The world’s leading string periodical, The Strad Magazine, described In the Moment “as a fine disc, the Arabella digging deep to produce performances of great intensity and poise.”
In May 2022, the Arabella quartet’s recording of the Six Concertante Quartets by Joseph Bologne, Le Chevalier de Saint-Georges was released for Naxos Records. The result of a close collaboration with Artaria editions, the recording was praised by BBC Music Magazine: “There’s certainly no lack of prowess in these delightful performances … This is wonderful advocacy of enchanting music”. Classical Music Daily enthused that “The Arabella Quartet dispatches these graceful cameos with aplomb, and the playing is immensely cohesive and consistently alive.”
In addition to performing as the Arabella Quartet, its members enjoy varied individual careers and bring to their quartet life a mature musicality and sense of equality. Julie Eskar is first concertmaster of the Danish National Chamber Orchestra, as well as a founding member of the acclaimed Eskar Trio. Sarita Kwok holds the Adams Endowed Chair in Music and serves as Chair of the Department of Music at Gordon College in Wenham, MA. Eskar and Kwok rotate in their roles as first and second violinists in the quartet. Ettore Causa is Professor of Viola at Yale’s School of Music. Alexandre Lecarme has been a member of the Boston Symphony orchestra since 2008 and holds the Mischa Nieland chair, endowed in perpetuity.
The Chamber Series is sponsored by Saul B. and Naomi R. Cohen Foundation
THE SAUL B. AND NAOMI R. COHEN FOUNDATION
Founded in 1997, the Foundation supports and promotes the fine and performing arts. It awards grants to promising young artists and especially gifted performing musicians to enable them to further their artistic pursuits. The Foundation also assists in the development of the musical careers of classical artists with assistance in arranging performance engagements, counseling in career strategy, guidance in the selection of live and recorded performances and help in day-to-day living matters.
To receive email communications about the Chamber Concert series, please contact sbc87home@gmail.com.
