Vanbrugh Quartet to Perform at Jorgensen, 4/29

The Vanbrugh Quartet, winner of the 1988 London International String Quartet Competition and internationally recognized every since, will perform Schubert's monumental Death and the Maiden on Tuesday, April 29, 2014, at 7:30 p.m. Alain Frogley, professor of music history at UConn, will give insights about the program at the 6:45 p.m. concert talk.

Of its 25th anniversary Beethoven cycle at London's Cadogan Hall in 2010, Strad magazine said, "Only one or two ensembles in the world plumb such depths." Resident quartet to Ireland's national public broadcaster RTÉ until last year, Vanbrugh has performed more than 800 concerts in Ireland. This season the quartet is touring the UK, Italy, Sweden, Russia and the United States, and in the fall will play in China, Korea and Singapore. Made up of Gregory Ellis, Keith Pascoe, Simon Aspell and Christopher Marwood, Vanbrugh is prized internationally for its beauty of sound, clarity of texture and integrity of interpretation with a wide range of repertoire.

At the Jorgensen concert, Vanbrugh will also perform Beethoven's String Quartet No. 11 in F Minor, Op. 95; String Quartet No. 1, "Kreutzer Sonata," by Leoš Janá?ek, and Stamp by Donnacha Dennehy.

In April 2005 the quartet hosted European Quartet Week as part of Cork's tenure as European Capital of Culture. In 1996 Vanbrugh founded the West Cork Chamber Music Festival and has been a familiar presence at the main UK festivals. The Cork festival's master classes have become a standard summer destination for Ireland's most talented young chamber musicians. In 2008 the quartet introduced a new composition workshop to encourage the art of string quartet writing among Ireland's young composers.

The Vanbrugh Quartet has recorded the complete Beethoven quartets and numerous contemporary Irish quartets. Vanbrugh won Gramophone Critics' Choice 2003 for Boccherini's cello quintets and Gramophone Editor's Choice in 2006 for Charles Stanford's viola and piano quintets. The quartet's latest CD, of works by Deirdre Gribbin, was released in 2013. In April 2014 the quartet will record works by John Kinsella.

Jorgensen was named Best College/University Performing Arts Center in the Hartford Advocate Best of Hartford Readers' Poll for both 2012 and 2013.

Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts is located at 2132 Hillside Road on the UConn campus in Storrs. Tickets are $30 and $26, with some discounts. For tickets and information, call the Box Office 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon-Fri at 860.486.4226, or order online at: jorgensen.uconn.edu. Free, convenient parking is available across the street in the North Garage.

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