CONCERT    

“BEETHOVEN: BEGINNINGS, BAGATELLES & ENDINGS”

Thursday 26 March 2015
The Shoe Factory, Nicosia / 8.30pm

The Pharos Arts Foundation presents the Kreutzer Quartet in all-Beethoven programme, on Thursday 26 March, at The Shoe Factory. Having forged an enviable reputation as one of Europe’s most dynamic and innovative string quartets, the Kreutzer Quartet regularly appears at many of the leading Festivals around the world ! and has established creative partnerships with numerous contemporary composers. For their concert in Nicosia, the Kreutzers will trace Beethoven’s musical evolution, from his early beginnings and the Haydn infused Op.18 quartets, all the way to his highly Romantic A minor, Op.132 quartet, written two years before the composer’s death. The programme will also include a transcription for sting quartet of Beethoven’s Bagatelles for piano Op.119, by British composer David Matthews.

KREUTZER QUARTET
The Kreutzer Quartet has forged an enviable reputation as one of Europe’s most dynamic and innovative string quartets. They regularly appear at many of the world’s leading Festivals, including the Venice Biennale and Warsaw Autumn. They are the dedicatees of numerous works, and over many years have established creative partnerships with composers including Sir Michael Tippett, David Matthews, Michael Finnissy, Judith Weir, Luca France! sconi, Poul Ruders and Haflidi Hallgrimsson. They have a particularly strong relationship to a cross-section of leading American composers, having collaborated intensively with the great George Rochberg in the last few years of his life, as long as working closely with figures as Elliott Schwartz, and the prolific symphonist Gloria Coates. As recording artists they have won critical acclaim for their discs on the Naxos, Metier, and Chandos labels. They are Artists in Association as Quartet at York University, and at Wilton’s Music Hall. Their work in collaboration with art galleries and museums has garnered much attention, and large audiences, particularly their annual residency at the Tate Gallery, St Ives.

All four of the quartet members are individually renowned as soloists. Violinist Peter Sheppard Skærved is the dedicatee of well over 200 works for solo violin. His extensive discography ranges from cycles of sonatas by Beethoven and Telemann, the complete quartets ! of David Matthews, Michael Tippett, and cycles of concerti from Haydn to Henze. He has won awards from the BBC Music Magazine, been nominated for a Gramophone Award and was nominated for a GRAMMY for a concerto recording in 2007. He is the only British violinist to have been invited to play on Paganini’s violin and he presently plays on a 1698 Stradivari owned Joseph Joachim. Composer/violinist Mihailo Trandafilovski has performed across Europe, America, and the UK. His compositional interests lie with both instrumental and computer music, and he was recently the subject of a Portrait disc recorded by Lontano under Odaline de la Martinez. Violist Morgan Goff has collaborated with major composers in Europe and Australia and has been featured in a great number of recordings – most recently in a disc of Lennox Berkeley’s solo works for Naxos. Cellist Neil Heyde has appeared as a soloist and chamber musician throughout Europe, the USA and Australia, broadcasting for the! BBC, WDR, ORF, Radio France, RAI, NRK, DR, Netherlands Radio and many other networks. He is distinguished for his ground-breaking film, under the composer’s supervision, of Ferneyhough’s notorious Time and Motion Study.

THE PROGRAMME: 
“BEETHOVEN: BEGINNINGS, BAGATELLES AND ENDINGS”
String Quartet in F major, Op.18, No.1 (1798) 
Bagatelles Op.119 (1822) Transcribed for String Quartet by David Matthews World Premiere
String Quartet No.15 in A minor, Op.132 (1825)