News
And The GRAMMY Goes To. . .
February 14, 2011
The Parker Quartet for Best Chamber Music Performance!!!!
New York Times Review
October 28, 2010
October 25, 2010
Practice Gets Group Back to Carnegie
By STEVE SMITH
The concert the Parker Quartet presented at Weill Recital Hall on Friday was billed as a Carnegie Hall debut, yet anyone with a knowledge of the ensemble’s history might have been struck with a sense of familiarity.
The quartet, formed in 2002 at the New England Conservatory, made a strong first impression at Weill nearly five years ago, with a program that included a Beethoven masterpiece and a complex modern work by the Hungarian composer Gyorgy Kurtag.
On Friday the same performers — Daniel Chong and Karen Kim, violinists; Jessica Bodner, violist; and Kee-Hyun Kim, cellist — returned to Weill. Again their program included a Beethoven masterpiece and a complex modern work by a Hungarian, this time Gyorgy Ligeti.
That this event was presented under the Carnegie Hall aegis was a testament to what the youthful group has achieved in the meantime. Its previous engagement was presented by the Concert Artists Guild, an organization that molds the careers of emerging classical performers. The distinction indicated that five years of steady work, both in concert halls and in nightclubs, has paid off.
Defusing what could have been a portentous affair, the Parker Quartet opened with five selections from Dvorak’s “Cypresses,” a collection of transcribed songs. Folksy and ingratiating, the music aptly showcased the quartet’s warm, secure sound and expressive unity, and revealed Ms. Bodner in particular as an especially soulful soloist.
Much as the comparably young Pacifica String Quartet has made a calling card of Elliott Carter’s treacherously difficult string quartet works, the Parker has advocated for Ligeti’s two mature quartets in both formal and casual concert settings, and on an admirable recent Naxos CD. In Ligeti’s Quartet No. 1 (“Metamorphoses Nocturnes”), the players showed an effortless grasp of the work’s bracing rhythms, jarring transitions and haunting chiaroscuro.
Conventional wisdom holds that performers this young lack the seasoning to convey fully the pain, piety and mystery of late Beethoven works like the Quartet in C sharp minor (Op. 131). That the claim is clichéd does not disprove it altogether; in overemphatic passages and in moments when cohesion slipped fleetingly, you sensed that the players were still finding their way.
Even so, their lucidity and poise indicated that theirs is an interpretation that will deepen with time. And when pressed for an encore, the group wisely offered the glowing Adagio from Haydn’s “Rider” Quartet (Op. 74, No. 3): instead of a bon-bon, a benediction.
Washington Post Review
December 26, 2009
Parker String Quartet at Library of Congress
12.21.09
Parker Quartet
The Washington Post
By Joe Banno
Beethoven’s late quartets are still, after nearly 200 years, among the best barometers for assessing a string quartet’s interpretive profile. These complex, emotionally restive works from the end of the composer’s life open themselves to a wide variety of responses. They prove alternately nostalgic and daringly forward-looking in terms of style.
The Parker String Quartet — a youthful ensemble of New England Conservatory grads — brought freshness and light to the first of the late quartets, the E-flat Quartet, Op. 127, at the Library of Congress on Friday. There was a notable ardor and tenderness to the first movement, a rapt reflectiveness in the second, and subtly inflected, quicksilver engagement with Beethoven’s intricate writing in the Scherzando and Finale. Nothing was offhand or superficial in the Parker’s emotionally mature reading, but the players found the breath of youth under the composer’s autumnal ruminations.
Haydn’s Quartet in C, Op. 20, No. 2, drew a performance that was so light on its feet it was practically airborne, though the ensemble also made compelling work of the plunge into darkness at the opening of the slow movement. And in Henri Dutilleux’s moody and mysterious first string quartet, “Ainsi la Nuit,” the Parker distilled a potently unsettling atmosphere from coloristic devices like sudden bursts of pizzicato, a series of eerie upper-string harmonics and the evocatively slow decay of released notes. Stradivari, Amati and Guarneri instruments from the library’s collection, loaned to the musicians for this recital, contributed silver-toned elegance to everything they played.
MPR and Performance Today Announces PQ Residency
December 17, 2009
Classical Minnesota Public Radio to Host The Parker Quartet During
a First-Ever Artists-in-Residency
The Parker Quartet to perform concerts throughout the region, including The
Varsity Theater inMinneapolisonApril 15
(St. Paul, Minn.)—December 15, 2009—Classical MinnesotaPublic Radio announced
today itsfirst-ever artists-in-residency, the Parker Quartet. The group will embark on a
multi-tiered programthroughout 2010—which includesappearances onPerformance
Todaybroadcasts, concertsthroughout the regionand at a non-traditional venue, The
Varsity Theater inMinneapolis.The group will also teach masters classes, and will host
a national string quartet competitionfor aspiring classical musicians.
“We have long hoped to host an up-and-coming classical music group,” says Brian
Newhouse, senior producer, Classical Minnesota Public Radio. “When we met the
Parker Quartet, we said, ‘Yes—bingo!’ They are so wonderful and generous with their
performances and their can-do spirit about working together.”
Click here for more information.
PQ Ligeti Recording Released!
December 5, 2009
Now available is the Parker Quartet’s recording of the complete works for string quartet by György Ligeti on Naxos. The disc includes Ligeti’s Quartet No.1 “Métamorphoses nocturnes,” Quartet No.2 and the Andante and Allegretto. For more information or to purchase, click here. If you would like to purchase the quartet’s debut disc of Bartók Quartets Nos. 2 and 5 on the ZigZag label, please go this way.
PQ and György Kurtág in NYC 2/2-2/6
January 6, 2009
The Parker Quartet has been given the opportunity to work with the great Hungarian composer György Kurtág as part of Carnegie Hall’s workshop series. One of the most highly esteemed composers of our time, Kurtág will work intensively with the quartet from February 2-6 in New York City on a set of works that include: Beethoven Op.127, Bartok No.4, and his own Six Moments musicaux, Op.44. In 2005, the Parker Quartet gave the North American Premiere of the Six Moments musicaux in Weill Hall.
If you are interested in attending these sessions, you can find out more information by clicking here.
Upcoming Events
February 08, 2012
University of Minnesota
Minneapolis, MNFebruary 13, 2012
Arkansas State University
Jonesboro, ARFebruary 17, 2012
Sinfonia Gulf Coast
Rosemary Beach, FLFebruary 18, 2012
Sinfonia Gulf Coast
Rosemary Beach, FLFebruary 19, 2012
Dundee Crescendo Concert Series
Omaha, NE