Over the past thirty-five years the Shanghai Quartet has become one of the world’s foremost chamber ensembles. The Shanghai’s elegant style, impressive technique, and emotional breadth allows the group to move seamlessly between masterpieces of Western music, traditional Chinese folk music, and cutting-edge contemporary works. 

 

Formed at the Shanghai Conservatory in 1983, soon after the end of China’s harrowing Cultural Revolution, the group came to the United States to complete its studies; since then the members have been based in the U.S.  while maintaining a robust touring schedule at leading chamber-music series throughout North America, Europe, and Asia.  

 

Highlights of the Shanghai Quartet’s 2019-20 season include performances at Carnegie Hall, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Freer Gallery (Washington, D.C.), and the Festival Pablo Casals in France, and Beethoven cycles for the Brevard Music Center, the Beethoven Festival in Poland, and throughout China. Other recent highlights include performances at the Wigmore Hall, the Budapest Spring Festival, and Suntory Hall, as well as collaborations with the NCPA and Shanghai Symphony Orchestras.  Among innumerable collaborations with eminent artists, they have performed with the Tokyo, Juilliard, and Guarneri Quartets; cellists Yo-Yo Ma and Lynn Harrell; pianists Menahem Pressler, Peter Serkin, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, and Yuja Wang; pipa virtuoso Wu Man; and the vocal ensemble Chanticleer. The Shanghai Quartet appears regularly at many of North America’s most prominent chamber-music festivals, including annual performances for Maverick Concerts, the Brevard Music Center, and Music Mountain.

 

The Shanghai Quartet has an extensive discography of more than thirty recordings, ranging from the Schumann and Dvorak piano quintets with Rudolf Buchbinder to Zhou Long’s Poems from Tang for string quartet and orchestra with the Singapore Symphony. The Quartet has also recorded a collection of Chinese folk songs called Chinasong, featuring music arranged by Yi-Wen Jiang reflecting on his childhood memories of the Cultural Revolution in China. The Quartet has recorded the complete Beethoven string quartets. The Shanghai Quartet performs on four exceptional instruments by Stradivari, Guarneri, Goffriller, and Guadagnini, generously loaned through the Beare’s International Violin Society to honor the quartet’s thirty-fifth anniversary. 

 

String Quartet No. 13 in B-flat major, Op. 130

-----Intermission-----

String Quartet No. 7 in F major, Op. 59-1"Razoumovsky"

 

String Quartet No. 10 in E-flat major, Op. 74”Harp” 

String Quartet No. 5 in A major, Op. 18-5  

-----Intermission-----

String Quartet No. 8, in E minor, Op. 59-2"Razoumovsky"

 

* Program subject to change