Dover Quartet will perform March 11 in the Smith Auditorium. Courtesy photo
LACA News:
The much admired Dover Quartet will perform in the Smith Auditorium in Los Alamos at 7 p.m. Friday, March 11 as part of the Los Alamos Concert Association’s 70th Anniversary Season.
Since a triumphant sweep at the prestigious Banff International String Quartet Competition in 2013, the Dover has won acclaim world-wide. The New Yorker dubbed them “the young American string quartet of the moment.” James Keller of the Santa Fe New Mexican described the young ensemble as “string quartet Nirvana.”
The ensemble’s program will include Mozart’s Quartet in B-flat Major, K. 458 known as the “Hunt” and Beethoven’s Quartet in F Major, Op. 59, No. 1, one of three quartets commissioned by Count Andrei Kirillovic Razumovsky. Sandwiched between these two icons of the quartet repertoire is a new work that should have special resonance in the scientific community of Los Alamos.
Pale Blue Dot was commissioned for the Dover Quartet by the Caramoor International Music Festival and premiered in 2014. Composer David Ludwig was inspired by the famous photograph of Earth taken by the Voyager 1 space probe as it left the solar system in 1990. In the photo, Earth’s apparent size is less than a pixel, a pale blue dot against the great expanse of space. In his composition, Ludwig imagines Voyager’s travels over millions of years and its discovery by intelligent beings. Those beings access music preserved on the “Golden Record” aboard the spacecraft, music much distorted over eons.
Quartet members Joel Link and Bryan Lee (violins), Milena Pajaro-Van De Stadt (viola) and Camden Shaw (cello) have been playing together since their student days at the Curtis Institute. After completing residencies at Rice University and as the very first quartet-in-residence at their alma mater, they now hold a similar appointment at Northwestern University.
Since January, their busy touring schedule has taken them to performances in the new Philharmonie de Paris, plus venues in Germany, Luxembourg, Israel, Canada and across the US.
Tickets for this performance are available electronically through LACA’s web site, in Los Alamos at CB Fox and Smith’s Marketplace, in White Rock at Smith’s and at the door. In Santa Fe, tickets are available at the Lensic box office. Continuing a long LACA tradition, tickets for young people age 6-18 are free and available at the Los Alamos and White Rock outlets and at the door. Children under 6 will not be admitted.
For complete program, venue and ticket information, visit www.losalamosconcert.org.
