This Spring, Dover Quartet Debuts in Eleven European Cities and Continues Complete Beethoven Cycles

camden shaw ·

This spring, the Dover Quartet – praised by the Washington Post for “impeccable refinement” – performs across Austria, Germany and Switzerland, making debuts on every stop of their eleven-city tour, with a varying program that features Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert, Smetana, Britten, Barber, and two contemporary composers the group has consistently championed: David Ludwig and Pulitzer Prize-winner Caroline Shaw. Also this spring, having embarked in the fall on the first complete Beethoven quartet cycles of their career at SUNY Buffalo and the University of Connecticut, they complete the last few concerts of those respective cycles, as well as performing another at the Montreal Chamber Music Festival. Rounding out the quartet’s spring season are three performances at the Savannah Music Festival, a continuation of their residency at Northwestern’s Bienen School of Music, concerts on both coasts of the U.S., including a People’s Symphony Concert in New York’s Town Hall with clarinetist Richard Stoltzman, and more.

Read the complete news release Here

Dover Quartet’s winter includes NYC Peoples’ Symphony concert (Dec 10), Kennedy Center, & Avi Avital tour

camden shaw ·

Earlier this fall, the Dover Quartet made its recording debut with Tribute: Dover Quartet Plays Mozart on the Cedille label. Named “CD of the Week” by Classical Radio Boston, the album scored five-star reviews from Audiophile Audition and Fanfare’s Jerry Dubins, who heralded it as “music-making not of the highest order but of the next order,” and concluded: “How blessed we are to be living in a golden age of string playing. The Dover Quartet now takes that to the next level, platinum.” One of the works featured on Tribute is Mozart’s Quartet in B-flat, K. 589, of which – alongside quartets by Beethoven and Britten – the Dovers offer New York City audiences a live rendition this Saturday, December 10, in their role as the first Ensemble-in-Residence in the 116-year history of the Peoples’ Symphony Concerts. Winter also sees the unstoppable string quartet return to New York, to celebrate Mozart’s birthday with WQXR in a special live event and webcast from The Greene Space (Jan 27); embark on a U.S. tour with mandolin virtuoso Avi Avital (Dec 6; Feb 7, 11-19); and give recitals in Philadelphia (Jan 11 & 29), at Northwestern University (Jan 15), and at Washington’s Kennedy Center (Jan 9), where, as the Washington Post recognized, the Cleveland Quartet Award-winning group’s debut was “a triumph” that showed “why they should be on [music lovers’] must-hear list.”

Read the complete news release Here

Award-Winning Dover Quartet Releases Debut CD, Plays Music from All-Mozart Album at NYC’s SubCulture on Nov 2

camden shaw ·

The Dover Quartet – the group the New Yorker calls “the young American quartet of the moment” – makes its recording debut Friday, Oct 14 with the release of Tribute: Dover Quartet Plays Mozart on the Cedille label. The album pays homage to the Guarneri Quartet, with the same program as that ensemble’s own first recording, and Guarneri violist Michael Tree joins the Dovers for a Mozart quintet on the new disc.  At NYC’s SubCulture on November 2, the group performs the two quartets from the CD and engages in an onstage conversation with Guarneri violinist Arnold Steinhardt. The Dovers will be signing copies of the new CD after the performance. The event is part of an especially busy season for the Dovers in NYC that includes performances in December and May for the Peoples’ Symphony Concerts, marking a continuation of their three-and-a-half year appointment as the first Ensemble-in-Residence in the 116-year history of that organization.

Read the complete news release Here

Dover Quartet Makes Recording Debut with All-Mozart Album, Tours with Edgar Meyer and Avi Avital, Gives First Complete Beethoven Cycle, and More This Season

camden shaw ·

Fresh from a banner season, the Dover Quartet juggernaut gathers steam in 2016-17, with several notable firsts ahead for the group the New Yorker calls “the young American quartet of the moment.” After making its recording debut this fall with the release of an all-Mozart album on the Cedille label, the quartet embarks on a pair of North American tours, first in company with double-bassist Edgar Meyer and then with mandolin virtuoso Avi Avital; makes debuts in eleven cities across Germany, Austria, and Switzerland; performs at Washington’s Kennedy Center and in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Seattle, and two dozen more U.S. cities; and launches the second leg of its three-year residencies at Northwestern University and the Peoples’ Symphony Concerts in New York. Over the course of the season, the Dovers also undertake the first complete Beethoven quartet cycles of their career, at the Montreal Chamber Music Festival, the University of Connecticut, and SUNY Buffalo, where they follow in the footsteps of the Budapest, Guarneri and Cleveland Quartets by performing the master composer’s complete quartet output in the university’s famous “Slee Cycle” series.

Read the complete news release Here

Dover Quartet Crowns Banner Season with Full Summer of Festivals, in Countdown to Fall Album Debut

camden shaw ·

To crown a banner season highlighted by the group’s Carnegie Hall debut and Cleveland Quartet Award win, the Dover Quartet looks forward to an intensive summer on the U.S. festival circuit. Besides making debuts at the Toronto Summer Music Festival and Madeline Island Music Camp, where they coach young chamber musicians alongside the Arianna and Pacifica Quartets, the Dovers return to Bravo! Vail, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, the Ottawa Chamberfest, Mt. Desert Festival of Chamber Music, and Chamber Music Northwest, where, during a weeklong residency, they join clarinet virtuoso David Shifrin for the world premiere of a new quintet by Richard Danielpour. For the Mark di Suvero Commemorative Concert at Montana’s Tippet Rise Art Center, they play Schubert’s transcendent String Quintet in C for their first collaboration with Trailblazer Award-winning cellist Matt Haimovitz. And, on a summer lineup that also includes Beethoven’s complete Razumovsky Quartets and works by composers ranging from Haydn and Mozart to Smetana, Dohnányi, Shostakovich, and Britten, they continue to champion a recent commission by David Ludwig, named one of NPR’s “Top 100 Composers Under 40.” Click here to see the Dover Quartet play Shostakovich.

Read the complete news release Here

The Dover Quartet’s Camden Shaw discusses their upcoming Carnegie Hall debut

camden shaw ·

“For a musician, performing at Carnegie hall is every bit as exciting – and daunting – as one would imagine. We’ve been fortunate enough in the past few years to perform in some incredible venues all over the world, and yet there’s still an aura around Carnegie that is truly unique; as we move toward the performance, we feel an anticipation that combines immense pride and gratitude with the sobering sense of responsibility: not only to do our best, but to show who we are.”

The Quartet’s program is designed not only to be compelling and musically coherent, but also to showcase something of the genre’s expressive capabilities and their own interpretative range. As Shaw puts it,

“We put considerable thought into constructing a program that is not only varied and stimulating for the audience, but philosophically representative of what our group stands for; therefore, each of the three pieces we will perform represents a facet of our group. The Dvorák ‘American’ represents our passion for romantic, lush music; the Berg, our aim to be fearless (it was the very first piece we learned together, despite its difficulty); and the Beethoven – ah, the Beethoven. Beethoven’s impact on music, and on quartet writing, is nothing short of earth-shattering, but also exemplifies two ideas that we hold dear: the relentless pursuit of artistic development, and a perfect balance between the emotional and intellectual components of music-making. 

         “It is the latter concept that ties the program together even more completely, for not only are each of these pieces individually significant, they are all in the same key: the Dvorák, the Beethoven, and the longest stretch of clear tonality in the Berg are all in F major. Additionally, the balance between emotion and thought is reflected in the works themselves, ranging from the emotionally driven Dvorák to the intellectually remarkable Berg, and ending with the uniquely balanced palette of Beethoven.”

Read the complete news release Here

Dover Quartet Makes Carnegie Hall Debut on April 8

camden shaw ·

Recognized as “the young American string quartet of the moment” (New Yorker), The Dover Quartet recently added the Hunt Family Award – one of the inaugural Lincoln Center Emerging Artist Awards – to a string of honors that already includes the Cleveland Quartet Award, a sweep of the 2013 Banff International String Quartet Competition, and top prizes at the Fischoff and Wigmore Hall International competitions. Now the group returns to New York for another major career milestone, making its Carnegie Hall debut on April 8 with a thoughtfully curated program that pairs the first of Beethoven’s three Razumovsky quartets with Berg’s sole quartet and Dvorák’s “American,” in Weill Recital Hall. As Strad magazine observes, “With their exceptional interpretative maturity, tonal refinement, and taut ensemble,” the Dovers are “pulling away from their peers.” Click here to see the Dover Quartet play the first movement of Dvorák’s “American” Quartet. Read the complete news release Here. 

Dover Quartet awarded prestigious Cleveland Quartet Award

camden shaw ·

 NEW YORK, NY (September 28, 2015)—Chamber Music America (CMA) announced today that the Dover Quartet has been selected to receive the Cleveland Quartet Award for the 2016–17 and 2017–18 seasons.
 
Established in 1995, the biennial award honors and promotes a rising young string quartet whose artistry demonstrates that it is in the process of establishing a major career. “We are pleased that the Dover Quartet has received the distinction of the Cleveland Quartet Award, in this, the award’s 20th anniversary year...