Juilliard String Quartet

Wednesday, April 22, 2009, 8 p.m.

Tickets: $22, OCID and Seniors 55+: $22, Students: $10
Location: Finney Chapel (directions)

In the 60 years of its existence, the ever-evolving institution that is the Juilliard String Quartet has become a living American legend. The quartet has, from the beginning and throughout its career, been recognized for the boldness of its interpretation of the classics, with an equal and parallel tradition of championing the new—a vibrant combination of the familiar and the daring. Honoring that tradition, this program includes one of the quartet’s famous premieres, Henri Dutilleux’s Ainsi la Nuit (1978), combined with classics by Haydn and Beethoven. Hear first violinist Joel Smirnoff in his last season with the quartet; he became a Greater Clevelander in 2008 after taking the helm as president of the Cleveland Institute of Music. Violinist Ronald Copes is a 1971 alumnus of the Conservatory.

Haydn: String Quartet in C Major, Op. 20, No. 2

Dutilleux: Ainsi la Nuit

Beethoven: String Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 127

“The Juilliard String Quartet, in its more than 50 years, has made it a point of honor to aproach contemporary pieces with the same care and respect as it would established classics, and to approach antique masterworks with the sense of excitement and adventure it would the newly minted.”

The New York Times