The Belcea String Quartet
Corina Belcea violin
Laura Samuel violin
Krzsysztof Chorzelski viola
Alasdair Tait cello
| Haydn | String quartet Op 50 No. 6 "The Frog" |
| Bartok | String quartet No. 5 |
| Beethoven | String quartet No. 14 Op 131 |
Saturday 26 October 2002
7.30 pm
St Michael's Church, Linlithgow
"The Belcea already bears the hallmarks of greatness" The Strad
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The Quartet was formed when Romanian violinist Corina Belcea gathered a group of fellow students to play Beethoven's Op.18 No. 1 at an introductory college recital.
Along with core Viennese repertoire, the four players share an insatiable appetite for early 20th-century music, particularly Bartók, Janácek and the music of the Second Viennese School.
Respected music magazine The Strad recently ran a cover story entitled "Belcea Rising: why there is no stopping the group everyone wants..."
Biography
The Belcea Quartet, the Wigmore Hall’s new Quartet in residence, is rapidly gaining an enviable reputation as one of the leading quartets of the younger generation. This season they will give six concerts at Wigmore Hall, collaborating with artists such as Imogen Cooper, Thomas Ades, Ian Bostridge, Piotr Anderszewski and the Borodin String Quartet. Whilst sustaining a demanding schedule of professional engagements, they are continuing to study at the highest possible level: with the Alban Berg Quartet in Cologne.
The Belcea Quartet were selected to represent Great Britain in the European Concert Halls Organisation Rising Stars series for the 1999/2000 season. As part of this series, the Quartet made its debuts in New York, Vienna, Cologne, Amsterdam, Athens, Paris and Brussels, as well as giving concerts in London and Birmingham. Festival appearances in the summer of 2001 included debuts at Edinburgh and Delft, as well as re-invitations to Cheltenham, Aldeburgh and the City of London Festival. The Quartet has been one of the selected artists for the BBC Radio 3 New Generations scheme.
The Belcea Quartet has also had works commissioned including Two Movements for String Quartet by Simon Holt - which received its world première at the Cheltenham Festival in July 2001 - as well as works by William Mival and Tatyana Komarova, the latter to be premiered at the Lucerne International Festival in 2002. The Quartet's first CD of quartets by Debussy, Ravel and Dutilleux was released last autumn, and has just won the Gramophone Award 2001 in the Debut category.
The Quartet was established in 1994 at the Royal College of Music, where they were coached by the Chilingirian Quartet, Simon Rowland-Jones and the Amadeus Quartet. From 1997 to 2000 they were represented by the Young Concert Artists Trust in London. They are currently supported by the Royal College of Music's New Generation Scheme and by Zurich Financial Services. In May 2001, the Quartet received the Chamber Music Award of the Royal Philharmonic Society.As featured artists on EMI's Debut label, the Belcea has recorded quartets by Debussy, Dutilleux and Ravel.
'rapt and absorbed, flawlessly balanced and dynamic' (The Guardian)
'quartet playing of such distinction that one could be forgiven for thinking one was listening to a group with decades of experience, In fact, it was the youthful Belcea Quartet: already musicians worth travelling a long way to hear.' (The Times)
Prior to their concert in Linlithgow, the Belcea (pronounced BEL-cha) will be making a return visit to Australia playing Canberra 16/9/02; Melbourne 17/9/02; Newcastle 28/9/02; and Hobart 3/10/02 following on from a successful debut at the Sydney Festival concerts in January.
Tickets £6, £5 concession, £2 student
Available from Linlithgow Gazette Office, Morrison's Shoe Shop, at the door or
telephone 01506 844247
Ticket information here -> |
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