A CanAmerican String Quartet from Pittsburgh Symphony

Event Details

Event type: All Ages

 In their debut season of 2016, the highlight was a performance organized by the quartet during an international tour with the orchestra.  The Clarion Quartet traveled to the former Teresienstadt concentration camp in the present day Czech Republic to perform, on the original barracks stage, the works of composers who had been interned there and of others who suffered a similar fate.At the professional level these composers had endured the silence of their creative output, and at the human level, they had suffered physical abuse, the loss of careers, exile and in many cases execution. The quartet felt a sense of calling to respond to the two-part cruelty done to these artists. The quartet binds artistic virtuosity with humane purpose to highlight these great works that are just now emerging into the standard repertoire.

members: Jennifer Orchard (from Canada); Marta Krechkovsky, violins; Banerdt, cello; Bronwyn Banerdt, cello

 Program: Music affected by the Holocaust: Erwin Schulhoff (1894-1942*): Five pieces for String Quartet; Erich Wolfgang Korngold  (1897-1957*): quartet no 3; Viktor Ullmann (1898-1944*): Quartet no 3.

This powerful music is rendered more poignant by the horrors suffered by or evaded by these three important composers of the early 20th century. Korngold was the only one who escaped to America, where he became one of the all-time great film composers as well.

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