Segerstrom Center Kicks Off Music Series with Germany's Auryn Quartet

Performing together for the past 35 years, the dynamic and mesmerizing Auryn Quartet makes its Segerstrom Center debut on Tuesday, October 11 in Samueli Theater for an evening of chamber music that The Cleveland Plain Dealer declares, "[is] in the European tradition that blends elegance of sound with seamless phrasing and clarity of detail." Having recorded all 68 of Haydn's quartets, naturally the evening will include a selection by the composer, Haydn's String Quartet Opus 77/1 G Major. The program continues with Bartók's String Quartet No. 2, Stravinsky's Three Pieces for String Quartet and Mozart's String Quartet K. 465 "Dissonance." The Auryn Quartet includes Matthias Lingenfelder, violin; Jens Oppermann, violin; Stewart Eaton, viola and Andreas Arndt, cello.

Tickets for Auryn Quartet start at $29 and go on sale Sunday, September 4 at 10 a.m. and will be available online at www.SCFTA.org, at the Box Office at 600 Town Center Drive in Costa Mesa or by calling (714) 556-2787. A free Preview Talk with musicologist and author Herbert Glass will take place at 7:15 p.m.

Segerstrom Center for the Arts applauds the Colburn Foundation for its support of the Chamber Music Series. Kia is the Official Automotive Partner of the Center and United Airlines is the Official Airline of the Center. Classical KUSC is the Media Partner of the Chamber Music Series.

The Auryn Quartet, considered Grand Masters in the quartet world, is one of the most sought after andrespected ensembles performing around the globe. The Quartet has not changed its personnel over this long period, and continues with its fresh and pioneering approach to repertoire and performance.

The Auryn's main mentors were the Amadeus Quartet, and the Guarneri Quartet with which they studied between 1982 and '87 in Cologne, Germany, and at the University of Maryland, USA. Claudio Abbado was also an important influence on the Quartet's musical development, under whose baton they performed as string principles in the European Union Youth Orchestra.

The Quartet won its earliest prizes at the Portsmouth International Competition and the ARD Munich Competition, both in 1982, only one year after the group's inception. The ensemble also won the main prize at the European Broadcasting Competition in Bratislava in 1989.

Invitations to most international music festivals followed in quick succession: Lockenhaus, Salzburger Festspiele, Edinburgh International Festival, Musiktage Mondsee, Schwetzinger Festspiele, and Stavangar festivals just to name a few. Recent tours have taken the Quartet from Lincoln Center in New York, to the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, and also to Wigmore Hall in London, where they performed a complete cycle of the Beethoven quartets.

The Auryn Quartet has had many fruitful musical partnerships over the years, with performers such as Tabea Zimmerman, Alexander Lonquich, Sharon Kam, Nobuko Imai, Christian Poltéra, Menachim Pressler, Peter Orth, Michael Tree, Martin Fröst, Liza Ferschtman, Cecile Licad, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Christine Schäfer and many others. The Quartet now runs its own annual chamber music festival in the Venetian town of Este in Italy (Incontri Internazionali) and is Artistic Director of the Musiktage Mondsee in Austria.

The Auryns have a compelling discography, working exclusively with the TACET company since 2000. The most ambitious recording project, the edition of all 68 Haydn quartets, was finished in September 2010 (followed by the recent release of all Mozart viola quintets with Nobuko Imai.)

Three complete concert-series of the Haydn quartets, each comprising 18 concerts, were performed by the Auryns in Detmold, in Cologne (West German Radio), and Padova, Italy, in commemoration of the Haydn bicentennial year 2009.

The four musicians of the Auryn Quartet play on wonderful Italian instruments: a Stradivari violin (1722, exJoachim), a Petrus Guarneri violin, a Brothers Amati viola (1616) and a Niccolo Amati cello, all instruments having belonged to well-known members of a quartet before. Since 2003, the Auryn Quartet has been sharing its wealth of experience with musicians of younger generations, in the form of a teaching position at the Music Academy in Detmold, Germany, where they are professors for chamber music.

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