The
Vermeer Quartet| Shmuel Ashkenasi, violin | Richard Young, viola |
| Mathias Tacke, violin | Marc
Johnson, cello |
Biography
With performances in practically every major city in North America, Europe, and Australia, the Vermeer Quartet has achieved an international stature as one of the world’s finest chamber music ensembles. Since its formation in 1969 at Marlboro, the Vermeer has performed at many other prestigious festivals including Tanglewood, Aldeburgh, Mostly Mozart, Aspen, Bath, Lucerne, Norfolk, South Bank, Taos, Flanders, Albuquerque, Stresa, Berlin, Schleswig-Holstein, Santa Fe, Edinburgh, Daniel, Great Woods, Spoleto, Ravinia, and the Casals Festival.The ensemble's recent performances include chamber music societies in Calgary, Philadelphia, Columbus, and San Antonio, as well as on the chamber music series of Notre Dame, Pennsylvania State University, University of Washington, and Ohio University, among others. The Vermeer recently performed the Beethoven cycle under the auspices of Syracuse Friends of Chamber Music, and over a six year period is performing the Beethoven cycle at the Cleveland Museum of Art. The group tours Europe at least twice each season, and returned to Japan for the fourth time in six years in the spring of 2005. In 2003 they received their 2nd Grammy nomination for their CD of the Shostakovich and Schnittke piano quintets with Boris Berman on the Naxos label. Their recording of the six Bartok quartets was released by Naxos in May of 2005.
Now living in Chicago, the members of the Vermeer Quartet have been on the Resident Artist Faculty of Northern Illinois University at DeKalb since 1970. They are also Fellows of the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, England, where they have presented master classes since 1978. For over two decades they have spent part of each summer on the coast of Maine as the featured ensemble for Bay Chamber Concerts.
The Vermeer Quartet offers an impressive variety of repertoire, including not only the standard classics, but many less familiar compositions as well. They have also presented many new works for string quartet, a number of which were written for them. Their recordings include the complete quartets of Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, and Bartok, plus works by Schubert, Dvorak, Shostakovich, Haydn, Mendelssohn, Schnittke, Verdi, and Brahms. Their Grammy-nominated CD of Haydn’s The Seven Last Words of Christ has been broadcast to over 60 million people throughout the world, thus reaching far beyond the traditional chamber music audience.
VERMEER QUARTET -- INDIVIDUAL BIOGRAPHIES
SHMUEL ASHKENASI, violin, was born in Israel where he was a student of Ilona Feher. He later studied with Efrem Zimbalist at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia. He was the winner of the Merriweather Post Competition, was a finalist in the Queen Elisabeth Competition, and was second prize winner in the Tchaikovsky Competition. He has performed with many of the world’s leading orchestras in the United States, Europe, the Soviet Union, and Japan, and has appeared in recital with Murray Perahia and Peter Serkin. He has recorded two Paganini violin concerti with the Vienna Symphony for Deutsche Grammophon, as well as the Mozart A Major Concerto and the two Beethoven Romances for Tudor records.MATHIAS TACKE, violin, is originally from Bremen, Germany. He studied with Ernst Mayer-Schierning in Detmold, with Emanuel Hurwitz and David Takeno in London, and with Sandor Vegh in Cornwall. He won first prize in the Jugend Musiziert national competition, and graduated with honors from the Nordwestdeutsche Musikakademie, where he was later appointed to the faculty. From 1983-92 Mr. Tacke was a member of the Ensemble Modern, one of the most important professional groups specializing in 20th century music. In this capacity he gave countless premieres, including works by most of today’s leading composers. He has made numerous recordings for such labels as Sony, ECM and Harmonia Mundi.
RICHARD YOUNG, viola, studied with Josef Gingold, Aaron Rosand, William Primrose, and Zoltan Szekely. At age thirteen he was invited to perform for Queen Elisabeth of Belgium. Since then he has been soloist with various orchestras and has given recitals throughout the United States. A special award winner in the Rockefeller Foundation American Music Competition, he was a member of both the New Hungarian Quartet and the Rogeri Trio. He has taught at the University of Michigan, the People’s Music School in Chicago, and was chairman of the string faculty of Oberlin Conservatory. Mr. Young has appeared at many festivals including the Library of Congress, Kapalua, Wolf Trap, and the Casals Festival.
MARC JOHNSON, cello, studied in Lincoln, Nebraska with Carol Work, at the Eastman School of Music with Ronald Leonard, and at Indiana University with Janos Starker and Josef Gingold. While still a student, he was the youngest member of the Rochester Philharmonic, and has subsequently performed as soloist with that orchestra. In addition to numerous other awards, he won first prize in the prestigious Washington International Competition. Before joining the Vermeer, Mr. Johnson was a member of the Pittsburgh Symphony. He has recorded for CRI records, and has received critical acclaim for his recitals and solo appearances with various orchestras in the United States and Europe.
Website: http://www.vermeerqt.com
Individual Biographies
SHMUEL ASHKENASI, violin, was born in Israel where he was a student of Ilona Feher. He later studied with Efrem Zimbalist at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia. He was the winner of the Merriweather Post Competition, was a finalist in the Queen Elisabeth Competition, and was second prize winner in the Tchaikovsky Competition. He has performed with many of the world’s leading orchestras in the United States, Europe, the Soviet Union, and Japan, and has appeared in recital with Murray Perahia and Peter Serkin. He has recorded two Paganini violin concerti with the Vienna Symphony for Deutsche Grammophon, as well as the Mozart A Major Concerto and the two Beethoven Romances for Tudor records.
MATHIAS TACKE, violin, is originally from Bremen, Germany. He studied with Ernst Mayer-Schierning in Detmold, with Emanuel Hurwitz and David Takeno in London, and with Sandor Vegh in Cornwall. He won first prize in the Jugend Musiziert national competition, and graduated with honors from the Nordwestdeutsche Musikakademie, where he was later appointed to the faculty. From 1983-92 Mr. Tacke was a member of the Ensemble Modern, one of the most important professional groups specializing in 20th century music. In this capacity he gave countless premiers, including works by most of today’s leading composers. He has made numerous recordings for such labels as Sony, ECM and Harmonia Mundi.
RICHARD YOUNG, viola, studied with Josef Gingold, Aaron Rosand, William Primrose and Zoltan Szekely. At age thirteen he was invited to perform for Queen Elisabeth of Belgium. Since then he has been soloist with various orchestras and has given recitals throughout the United States. A special award winner in the Rockefeller Foundation American Music Competition, he was a member of both the New Hungarian Quartet and the Rogeri Trio. He has taught at the University of Michigan, the People’s Music School in Chicago, and was chairman of the string department of Oberlin Conservatory. Mr. Young has appeared at many festivals including the Library of Congress, Kapalua, Wolf Trap, and the Casals Festival.
MARC JOHNSON, cello, studied in Lincoln, Nebraska with Carol Work, at the Eastman School of Music with Ronald Leonard, and at Indiana University with Janos Starker and Josef Gingold. While still a student, he was the youngest member of the Rochester Philharmonic, and has subsequently performed as soloist with that orchestra. In addition to numerous other awards, he won first prize in the prestigious Washington International Competition. Before joining the Vermeer, Mr. Johnson was a member of the Pittsburgh Symphony. He has recorded for CRI records, and has received critical acclaim for his recitals and solo appearances with various orchestras in the United States and Europe.
Critical Acclaim
Washington Post
By Ronald Brown
"That said, the Vermeer Quartet’s glorious recital Saturday night at the University of Maryland was absolutely as good as it gets. This is an ensemble so integrated that technical evaluation - balance, phrasing, intonation and so forth - goes right out the door."
Cleveland Plain Dealer
By Donald Rosenberg
"The first movement of Op 59 No. 1, has some of the weirdest pages in Beethoven, a succession of chords that takes the instruments to the outer tonal limits. Here and elsewhere, the Vermeer beautifully delineated the piece’s strangeness, as well as its poignancy and high spirits. Bring on the other 15 quartets?"
Cincinnati Enquirer
By Janelle Gelfand
"Sparks flew in Tchaikovsky’s Quartet No. 3 in E-flat minor which concluded, where the musicians brought out all the work’s pathos with fervor. Most extraordinary, though, was their perfectly Sparks flew in Tchaikovsky’s Quartet No. 3 in E-flat minor which mat"
North American Representation and Publicity
ARTS MANAGEMENT GROUP, INC.
37 West 26th Street
Suite 403
New York NY 10010-1006
(212) 337-0838 TEL (212) 924-0382 FAX
info@artsmg.com