Friday, March 28, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.
The quartet has earned three Grammy Awards -- one for Best Classical Album and two for Best Chamber Music Performance -- Gramophone Magazine's Record of the Year and numerous Chamber Music Record of the Year awards.
Violinists Eugene Drucker and Philip Setzer alternate in the first choir position and are joined by violist Lawrence Dutton and cellist David Finckel.
The New Yorker wrote that "the Emerson has the traditional string-quartet virtues; each player is a strongly characterized individual, but the ensemble is temperamentally as well as sonically in balance. The four minds play upon each other, and upon the work, in perfect harmony; the players are in tune in all senses of the phrase. If one of them should be captured by a sudden, new inspiration, he could follow its prompting, confident of his partners' understanding and support."
Based in New York City, the Emerson String Quartet celebrates its 15th year as faculty members at the Hart School of Music at the University of Hartford where they have inaugurated a special training program for young string quartets. This is also the 17th season of the Emerson's series at the Smithsonian Institution.
In 1995, each member of the quartet received an honorary doctoral degree from Middlebury College in Vermont and the Medal for Distinguished Service in 1994 from the University of Hartford. The quartet has been featured in the New York Times Magazine, Bon Appetit, The Strand and Strings magazines.
Their Las Vegas performance will include Franz Schubert's Quartettsatz in C minor, D. 703, and the Quartet in D minor, D. 810, "Death and the Maiden" also by Schubert, Beethoven's String Quartet in F minor, Op. 95, "Serioso," and Samuel Barber's Adagio for String Quartet, Op. 11.
Tickets for the Emerson String Quartet are $20 and may be purchased at the Performing Arts Center box office or Dillard's department stores. For box office ticket information, call 895-3801. For information about tickets from Dillard's, call (800) 654-9545. The box office is open 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday. Discounts are available for students, seniors and military.
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