Jan. 23: ASPECT Foundation Presents Classical Vienna Feat. The Orion String Quartet with Clarinetist Alexander Bedenko

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Katy Salomon | Morahan Arts and Media
katy@morahanartsandmedia.com | 863.660.2214

ASPECT FOUNDATION FOR MUSIC AND ARTS PRESENTS
CLASSICAL VIENNA FEATURING THE ORION STRING QUARTET, JANUARY 23

Joined by Clarinetist Alexander Bedenko with an Illustrated talk by Stephen Johnson

New York, NY (December 13, 2018) — The ASPECT Foundation for Music & Arts continues its third New York City season of illuminating performances on Wednesday, January 23, 2019 at 7:30pm with Classical Vienna at Bohemian National Hall. The program features the acclaimed Orion String Quartet in Haydn’s String Quartet Op. 50 No. 2 and Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet in A major, K.581 performed with clarinetist Alexander Bedenko.

Veteran BBC radio host and musicologist Stephen Johnson returns for an illustrated talk on Vienna’s role in the transition of composer roles from employees to artistic heroes in the Classical era of Haydn and Mozart and into the Romantic period of Beethoven. People flocked from far and wide to Vienna, bringing with them contrasting cultural attitudes and beliefs. In what is called the “Classical” period, one can hear the first stirrings of Romanticism, revolutionary thinking, the spirit of courageous enquiry and delight in disputation. The paradox of Vienna is also the paradox of its music.

Future concerts of ASPECT’s 2018-2019 season include When Tchaikovsky Met Brahms on Wednesday, March 6 at Italian Academy at Columbia University featuring the Sitkovetsky Duo; Archduke Rudolph: Beethoven’s Pupil and Patron on Wednesday, April 17 at Bohemian National Hall featuring pianist Ignat Solzhenitsyn, violinist Korbinian Altenberger, and cellist Na-Young Baek; and Music of the 18th Century Grand Tour on Thursday, May 30 at Bohemian National Hall featuring the Four Nations Ensemble with soprano Pascale Beaudin.

Program Information
Classical Vienna
Wednesday, January 23, 2019 at 7:30pm
Bohemian National Hall | 321 E 73rd St | New York, NY
Tickets: $45 includes wine and refreshments.Link: https://www.aspectfoundation.net/payment-test/classical-vienna

Performers:
Orion String Quartet
Alexander Bedenko, clarinet
Illustrated talk by Stephen Johnson

Program:
Haydn – String Quartet Op. 50 No. 2
Mozart – Clarinet Quintet in A Major, K. 581

About the Orion String Quartet
The Orion String Quartet is one of the leading chamber music ensembles on the classical music scene today. Admired for the diverse nature of programming that juxtaposes masterworks of quartet literature with key works of the 20th and 21st centuries, the Orion provides singularly rich dimension to its music-making. The members of the Orion String Quartet—violinists Daniel Phillips and Todd Phillips, brothers who share the first violin chair equally, violist Steven Tenenbom, and cellist Timothy Eddy—have worked closely with illustrious musicians, such as Pablo Casals, Sir András Schiff, Rudolf Serkin, Isaac Stern, Pinchas Zukerman, Peter Serkin, members of the ensemble TASHI, and the Beaux Arts Trio, as well as the Budapest, Végh, Galimir, and Guarneri String Quartets. The Orion String Quartet are Artist Members of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and Quartet-in-Residence at the Mannes School of Music in New York.

The Orion String Quartet returned in summer 2018 to the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, with which it has enjoyed a long association, to perform eight programs that ranged from Haydn to Dvorák, Beethoven to Ravel. This season, the Quartet appears at Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center with an affecting program including J.S. Bach’s Cantata Ich habe genug, BWV 82 and Haydn’s The Seven Last Words of Christ. At the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, the Orion presents an all-Schubert program, including the String Quartet in G Major, D. 887, and the Cello Quintet in C major, D. 956, for which they are joined by cellist Peter Wiley. At Mannes, where the Quartet is featured in an annual four-concert series, they bring programs of the late Schubert quartets. The 2017-2018 season marked the Orion String Quartet’s 30th anniversary.

The Quartet has given stimulus to the development and expansion of the string quartet repertoire through commissions from composers Chick Corea, David Del Tredici, Alexander Goehr, Thierry Lancino, John Harbison, Leon Kirchner, Marc Neikrug, Lowell Liebermann, Peter Lieberson, and Wynton Marsalis.

The Orion String Quartet was established in 1987 and takes its name from the Orion constellation as a metaphor for the personality each musician brings to the group in its collective pursuit of the highest musical ideals.

About Alexander Bedenko
Clarinetist Alexander Bedenko is one of the most prolific talents of his generation and has performed with major conductors of leading orchestras, ensembles and festivals in the United States, Europe and Asia. 

In 1994, Bedenko was the first prize winner at the Moscow International Young Artist’s Competition. Following that he won the Interlochen Center for the Arts Concerto Competition (1996) and in 1999 the Grand-Prix at the International Selmer Clarinet Competition in Kiev. Additionally, Alexander held the prestigious named scholarship of The President of Ukraine, the "New Names Charity Foundation" from 1994-1997 and Vladimir Spivakov Foundation from 1997-1999.

Born in Ukraine into a family of musicians, Bedenko graduated from the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia where he studied clarinet with Donald Montanaro and chamber music with Pamela Frank, Peter Wiley and Joseph Silverstein. In January 2014, Bedenko was invited by Riccardo Muti to perform as principal clarinet on a highly acclaimed European tour with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and has also performed as guest principal clarinet with the London Symphony Orchestra, both at the Barbican Centre in London and on tour in Germany under the baton of Daniel Harding, with the Philharmonia Orchestra (London) and with the Cleveland Orchestra under the baton of Franz Welser Most.

From 2008-2018, Bedenko served as a co-principal clarinetist with the Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra, directed by Gabor Takacs-Nagy. In addition to his work with major orchestras, Bedenko's appearances as both a soloist and chamber musician have included concerts at Carnegie Hall, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Steinway Hall in New York City, the Chicago Cultural Center, the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C, and UNESCO in Paris. In 2007, Alexander appeared together with Richard Stoltzman on a recording (2007) of the music of J.S. Bach for the RCA/BMG Japan label.

About ASPECT Foundation for Music and Arts
ASPECT Foundation for Music and Arts was founded by Irina Knaster in London in 2011 and relocated to New York City in 2016. ASPECT presents a new concert format – one that transforms the traditional recital into an intimate, engaging, and thought-provoking blend of performance, speech, and image.

The Foundation’s chamber-music events feature some of today’s leading musicians and music experts. For each concert, they set the works on the program in context with presentations supported by visuals. These “illustrated talks” reveal fascinating details about the composer, the music, and the cultural history of the period in question.

ASPECT aims both to support and promote artists, and to welcome audiences old and new to explore new aspects of a classical repertoire of endless riches. It’s more than a concert. To find out more, please visit www.aspectfoundation.net.

*Photo of Orion Quartet at the top of release by Andreas Hafenscher.

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