Artists Showcase West 2009-10 Concert Season

For Immediate Release- May 14, 2009

Press inquiries contact George Bennett- bennettgeorge@hotmail.com

                                 2009-2010 Season

Downers Grove, IL- The Downers Grove Concert Association has announced programming for the
2009-2010 season of the Artists Showcase West classical music series. Once again five concerts are planned,
featuring musicians of outstanding quality and international acclaim. Until May 26^th subscriptions to all five
concerts are available for the very affordable price of $80 ($100 after that date), with student subscriptions
(grades 1-12) just $40 ($50 after May 26^th). Additional discounts are offered for families, and no price increase
has been implemented this year.

The 2009-2010 schedule of concerts is as follows:

October 4, 2009- St. Petersburg Quartet with guest clarinetist Boris Allakhverdyan

November 1, 2009- Stradivari Quartett (Wentz Concert Hall, Naperville)

February 14, 2010- Cuarteto Latinoamericano

March 21, 2010- Jean-Claude Pennetier, Piano

April 18, 2010- Trio Con Brio Copenhagen

     Artists Showcase West performances are held on Sunday afternoons at 3 PM in the Johnson Auditorium of
Downers Grove North High School. A pre-concert conversation conducted by music commentator Joshua Kind
begins at 2PM. The Johnson Auditorium is conveniently located at 4436 Main St, two blocks south of Ogden
Avenue in Downers Grove. Ample free off street parking is available. Please note the November 1^st
presentation of the Stradivari Quartett will be held in the new, state-of-the-art Wentz Concert Hall on the
campus of North Central College in Naperville.

     For more information please call 630-963-9093 or visit www.dgconcerts.org. The 2009-2010 Artists
Showcase West season is supported by a Community Grant from the Village of Downers Grove and the Illinois
Arts Council. Contributions to help fund Artists Showcase West are fully tax-deductible.

     In 2007 the St. Petersburg Quartet opened the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center's String Quartet
Series. On October 4^th they open Artists Showcase West's 63^rd season in a program including Brahms' Clarinet
Quintet with special guest Armenian clarinetist Boris Allakhverdyan. Founded in 1985 at what was then the
Leningrad Conservatory, the group's career was launched by taking 1^st Prize in the All-Soviet Union String
Quartet Competition. Hailed by the Miami Herald as “one of the most spectacularly well-knit groups in the
world”, the quartet has continued building its reputation with a Grammy nomination as well as garnering the
“Best Record of the Month” selection in both Gramophone and Stereo Review magazines. Tours have been
conducted on four continents, and performances given in some of the world’s leading concert halls including
Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and London’s Wigmore Hall.

     The second concert of the season will be the first Artists Showcase West concert ever held in Naperville. On
November 1^st the Stradivari Quartet will take the stage of the recently dedicated and acoustically superb
Wentz Concert Hall on the campus of North Central College. The members of the Zurich-based Stradivari
Quartett all perform on priceless string masterpieces crafted by Antonio Stradivari two centuries ago in the
Lombardy region of Italy.  The four musicians strive to bring out of these legendary instruments the full height
and depth of human emotion that music can express.  The group’s January 2009 U.S. debut recital at New
York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art was "distinguished by impressively refined sound."--The New York Times

    Valentine’s Day of 2010 finds the Mexican based Cuarteto Latinoamericano on stage in the Johnson
Auditorium. The Cuarteto Latinoamericano is an award winning, Grammy nominated group that anticipated
and helped create the current boom in Latin American classical music. Equally at home performing music of the
great European masters as well as music of their own country and South America, they are known worldwide
as the leading proponent of Latin American music for the string quartet. In residence at the Institute of Fine Arts
in Mexico City, and recently at Carnegie Mellon University, the group has toured extensively in Europe, North,
Central, and South America as well as Israel and New Zealand. "Exceptional Quartet…the performance was
riveting."--The Jerusalem Post

     One of France’s most distinguished and honored pianists will perform on March 28, 2010. A
multi-faceted musician, Jean-Claude Pennetier is a composer of opera and film scores, conductor,
teacher, chamber player, and above all a remarkable recitalist. Called, “one of the greatest
musicians of our time” by Leonard Bernstein, Mr. Pennetier was named a “Knight of the Legion of
Honor” by the French government in 2002. His Paris Piano Trio is so highly respected in his native
country that they are often referred to simply as “The Musicians”.

     Artists Showcase West’s season concludes on April 18, 2010 with a performance by the Trio
Con Brio Copenhagen. Korean sisters Soo-Kyung Hong, Soo-Jin Hong and Danish pianist Jens
Elvekjaer, received the prestigious Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson International Trio Award in
2005.  Among today's most accomplished young piano trios, the group has performed in major
European, Asian and American concert halls.  Soo-Kyung Hong plays an Amati cello and Soo-Jin
Hong, a Guarneri violin, instruments created by craftsmen who were contemporaries of Stradivari
during the 17^th and 18^th centuries in Cremona, Italy.