Penderecki String Quartet Live From Music Mountain on July 19

(Falls Village, CT) Live From Music Mountain presents the Penderecki String Quartet playing works by Beethoven, Kelly-Marie Murphy and Mendelssohn, followed by a conversation with Music Mountain artistic director, Oskar Espina-Ruiz. Live From Music Mountain continues to explore the work of artists during the time of Covid-19, while we remain physically distanced and the grounds at Music Mountain remain closed to the public. 

The Penderecki String Quartet is based in Ontario, Canada, serving as quartet in residence at Wilfrid Laurier University. Their illustrious career started 34 years ago, when they won the Penderecki Prize at the National Chamber Music Competition in Lódz, Poland in 1986. The conversation on Sunday will pay tribute to Maestro Krzysztof Penderecki, a mentor of the Penderecki String Quartet, who passed away earlier this year. 

The Penderecki String Quartet has become one of the most celebrated chamber ensembles of their generation.  The four Penderecki musicians (now originating from Poland, Canada, and USA) bring their varied yet collective experience to create performances that demonstrate their “remarkable range of technical excellence and emotional sweep” (Toronto, Globe and Mail).

Live From Music Mountain starts at 3 pm ET on Sunday, July 19, 2020, at musicmountain.org, on YouTube and on Facebook Live. Questions can be submitted in advance via email to info@musicmountain.org.  

“The Summer Shrine of the String Quartet”

— The New Yorker

About Penderecki String Quartet

Celebrating their 33rd anniversary, the Penderecki String Quartet began their career as winners of the Penderecki Prize at the National Chamber Music Competition in Lódz, Poland in 1986.   Now based in Waterloo, Ontario where they have been Quartet-in-Residence at Wilfrid Laurier University since 1991, The Penderecki String Quartet has become one of the most celebrated chamber ensembles of their generation.  The four Penderecki musicians (now originating from Poland, Canada, and USA) bring their varied yet collective experience to create performances that demonstrate their “remarkable range of technical excellence and emotional sweep” (Toronto, Globe and Mail).

The PSQ's international performing schedule has included appearances in New York (Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall), Amsterdam (Concertgebouw), Hong Kong (Academy for the Arts), Los Angeles (REDCAT Hall at Disney Center), St. Petersburg (Sheremetev Palace), the Adam Festival in New Zealand, and throughout Europe in Rome, Madrid, Paris, Belgrade, Prague, Krakow, Vilnius, and Zagreb.  The PSQ has also toured extensively in Mexico, Australia, Venezuela and Brazil and from coast to coast in Canada.

Dedicated educators, the PSQ have been recent guests at Bloomington Indiana University’s String Academy, the Beijing Conservatory, University of Southern California (Los Angeles), University of British Columbia in Vancouver, and with their partner universities in Osnabrück, Germany and Lyon, France.

To this day the PSQ is a devoted champion of the music of our time, having premiered over 100 new works from composers in Canada and abroad.   Penderecki Quartet's large discography includes over three dozen recordings including the chamber music repertoire of Beethoven and Brahms on both the Marquis and Eclectra labels, as well as the first Canadian release of the six Béla Bartók quartets.  Their disc of Marjan Mozetich’s “Lament in the Trampled Garden” won the 2010 JUNO Award for Best Composition.   In October 2013, the PSQ worked with Maestro Krzysztof Penderecki on his Third Quartet (2008) and performed it at Symphony Space in New York City on the occasion of his 80th birthday.  This followed with the recording of Penderecki’s Third Quartet along with quartets of Norbert Palej on the Marquis label.

The Penderecki Quartet has performed with such eminent classical artists as Martin Beaver, Atar Arad, Antonio Lysy, Jeremy Menuhin, James Campbell and enjoy exploring new music collaborations having recently appeared with jazz saxophonist Jane Bunnett, Brazilian jazz pianist Egberto Gismonti, pipa virtuoso Ching Wong, Dancetheatre David Earle, Pentaedre Wind Quintet, actor Colin Fox, and New York turntable artist DJ Spooky.

The Penderecki Quartet continue to be active members of the Faculty of Music at Laurier University where they have built the string program to be one of the top programs in Canada, attracting an international body of students.  Their annual Quartetfest at Laurier is an intensive study seminar and concert series that has featured such ensembles as the Tokyo, Lafayette, Miro, Ying, and Ariana String Quartets.

About Music Mountain

Music Mountain’s mission is the performance and teaching of the string quartet literature. While this mission remains vibrant in Music Mountain’s world-class Chamber Music Concert Series and Music Mountain Academy, it has expanded over the years with the addition of its popular Twilight Jazz Concert Series and new education and community programs.

Since 1930, generations of music lovers have come to Music Mountain for an exceptional concert experience and audiences continue to praise the outstanding quality and consistency of the events at Music Mountain, the exceptional acoustics of air-conditioned Gordon Hall, and the beauty and peaceful serenity of Music Mountain’s mountaintop grounds. While The New Yorker has described Music Mountain as “the summer shrine of the string quartet,” recent concertgoers see Music Mountain as “a peaceful green oasis” and highlight its “amazing venue, ambience, and experience.”

Music Mountain, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, began as the unique vision of Jacques Gordon, Chicago Symphony concertmaster from 1921 to 1930 and the founding first violinist of the Gordon String Quartet, one of the leading quartets of its time. The buildings at Music Mountain form a well-designed campus in the Colonial Revival style. They were built by Sears, Roebuck & Company’s prefabricated housing division and are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Today, artistic director Oskar Espina-Ruiz and Music Mountain’s dedicated board of directors steer Music Mountain through a period of continued growth, record-breaking attendance, campus improvements, and the expansion of its education and community programming.

Music Mountain is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts, Connecticut State Department of Economic and Community Development Office of the Arts, the Peter N. Krysa Fund of Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation, and two funds of the Northwest Connecticut Community Foundation, Inc., the Khurshed Bhumgara Fund and the Lucia Tuttle Fritz Fund.

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Music Mountain, 225 Music Mountain Road, Falls Village, CT 06031