We are very pleased to present a streaming performance by the Emerson Quartet for the holiday season. Friends Of Music Concerts has enjoyed a long history with the quartet. They have performed 17 times for us over the years beginning in 1982. Their next live performance for us will be on Sept. 17, 2022. And, sadly, it will be part of their final tour. The quartet will retire after next season. So we are thankful that they have included us on this historic tour and very grateful that they were willing to share the following recordings with us to stream during the holiday season.
Below the following videos, you will find a brief history of the quartet and links to other resources.
A Greeting from the Emerson Quartet
Schumann String Quartet No. 1 Movement 1
Schumann String Quartet No. 1, Movement 3
Schumann String Quartet No. 2, Movement 3
Schumann String Quartet No. 3, Movement 1
About the Emerson Quartet
Earlier this year, the Quartet announced that they will retire after one last tour for the 2022-2023 season. The four members of the Quartet – Eugene Drucker, Philip Setzer, Lawrence Dutton and Paul Watkins – plan to continue performing individually. They will also continue to mentor young ensembles through the Emerson String Quartet Institute at Stony Brook University, along with cellist David Finckel, who was a member of the quartet for 34 years and who is now co-director of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.
For more than 40 years the Emerson String Quartet has maintained its status as one of the world’s premier chamber music ensembles. The Quartet has made more than 30 acclaimed recordings, and has been honored with nine Grammys (including two for Best Classical Album), three Gramophone Awards, the Avery Fisher Prize, and Musical America’s “Ensemble of the Year” award. The Quartet collaborates with some of today’s
most esteemed composers to premiere new works, keeping the string quartet form alive and relevant. The group has partnered in performance with such stellar soloists as Reneé Fleming, Barbara Hannigan, Evgeny Kissin, Emanuel Ax, and Yefim Bronfman, to name a few.
The Quartet, which takes its name from the American poet and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson, has balanced their performing careers with a commitment to teaching. They have served as Quartet-in-Residence at Stony Brook University. In the spring of 2016 the State University of New York awarded full-time Stony Brook faculty members Philip Setzer and Lawrence Dutton the status of Distinguished Professor, and conferred the title of Honorary Distinguished Professor on part-time faculty members Eugene Drucker and Paul Watkins. In January 2015, the Quartet received the Richard J. Bogomolny National Service Award, Chamber Music America’s highest honor, in recognition of its significant and lasting contribution to the chamber music field.