Mill Valley Chamber Music Society to Welcome Escher String Quartet, 2/23

Mill Valley Chamber Music Society presents Escher String Quartet Sunday, Feb. 23, 2014.

The Mill Valley Chamber Music Society, a non-profit, all volunteer organization, continues its 40th Anniversary season presenting the Escher String Quartet.

The New York-based Escher String Quartet has received acclaim for its individual sound, inspired artistic decisions and unique cohesiveness. In June 2013, Rian Evans, for The Guardian described the Escher String Quartet as "clearly one of the finest quartets of their generation." Robert Battey of The Washington Post proclaimed Escher as "one of the top young quartets before the public today...This is a group to watch."

Recently honored as a recipient of the 2013 Avery Fisher Career Grant, the Escher String Quartet (featuring Adam Barnett-Hart, violin; Aaron Boyd, violin; Pierre Lapointe, viola and Dane Johansen, cello) performs 5 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 23, 2014 at the Mount Tamalpais United Methodist Church in Mill Valley, Calif., a venue with superb acoustics for chamber music. The program will include Schumann: Quartet, a minor, op. 41 #1; Berg: Quartet, op. 3; Dvorak Quartet, C, Op. 61

To celebrate the centennial of Benjamin Britten's birth, the Escher String Quartet curated and performed three concerts at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in 2013. "The programs, which place each of Britten's three string quartets into context, were designed by the members of the Escher String Quartet with the same penetrating intelligence and curiosity that informs their playing," wrote Zachary Woolfe for the New York Times in March, 2013.

This season, the foursome has been recording the complete Zemlinsky quartets for Naxos.

Championed by members of the Emerson String Quartet, the group were proud to be BBC New Generation Artists for 2010-2012. Having completed a three-year residency as artists of The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center's "CMS Two" programme, the ensemble has already performed at prestigious venues and festivals around the world including Alice Tully Hall, the 92nd Street Y and Symphony Space in New York, Kennedy Center, the Louvre, Ravinia and Caramoor Festivals, Music @ Menlo, West Cork Chamber Music Festival, Wigmore Hall, the City of London Festival and a tour of China including Beijing, Shanghai and Hangzhou.

The Escher String Quartet takes its name from Dutch graphic artist M.C. Escher and draws inspiration from the artist's method of interplay between individual components working together to form a whole. See more about the Escher String Quartet at www.escherquartet.com

COST: $15 to $30 per person.
$15 Youth - 18 years and under. $30 General.
Tickets sold at the door when space available. Reservations recommended.
TICKETS: Order through Brown Paper Tickets at 1-800-838-3006 or purchase at the door.
ONLINE TICKETS: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/448631
PHONE: 415-381-4453