Takács Quartet Performs At Segerstrom's Samueli Theater, December 8

Segerstrom Center for the Arts present longtime audience favorite The Takács Quartet, returning on Wednesday, December 8 at 8:00 pm at Samueli Theatre as part of the ensemble's forty-seventh season of performances.

They bring the world premiere of a new work by composer Stephen Hough, Les Six Rencontres, commissioned by Center Chamber Music patrons Elizabeth and Jutus Schlichting. They will then record this extraordinary work for Hyperion Records. The Takacs' program at the Center also includes the Haydn String Quartet in F minor, Op. 20, No. 5 and the Beethoven String Quartet in A minor, Op. 132.

The quartet - Edward Dusinberre, violin; Harumi Rhodes, violin; Richard O'Neill, viola; and Andras Fejer, cello - just won the Gramophone Classical Music Award for Chamber Music. It is renowned for the vitality of its interpretations. The London Guardian recently commented, "What endures about the Takacs Quartet, year after year, is how equally the four players carry the music". BBC Music Magazine described its recent Dohnanyi recording with pianist Marc Andre Hamelin as "totally compelling, encapsulating a vast array of colors and textures". Based in Boulder at the University of Colorado, the Grammy Award-winning ensemble performs eighty concerts a year worldwide.

About The Takács Quartet

During the last year, The Takács Quartet marked the arrival of Grammy-award-winning violist, Richard O'Neill by making two new recordings for Hyperion. Quartets by Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel and Felix Mendelssohn will be released in the Fall of 2021, followed in 2022 by a disc of Haydn's opp. 42, 77 and 103.

The Takács Quartet was formed in 1975 at the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest by Gabor Takács-Nagy, Károly Schranz, Gabor Ormai and András Fejér, while all four were students. It first received international attention in 1977, winning First Prize and the Critics' Prize at the International String Quartet Competition in Evian, France. The Quartet also won the Gold Medal at the 1978 Portsmouth and Bordeaux Competitions and First Prizes at the Budapest International String Quartet Competition in 1978 and the Bratislava Competition in 1981. The Quartet made its North American debut tour in 1982. In 2001 the members of the Takács Quartet were awarded the Order of Merit of the Knight's Cross of the Republic of Hungary, and in March 2011 the Order of Merit Commander's Cross by the President of the Republic of Hungary.

The Takács Quartet continues its role in 2021-2022 as Associate Artists at London's Wigmore Hall, performing four concerts there this season. In addition to many concerts in the U.K., the ensemble will play at prestigious European venues including the Paris Philharmonie, Berlin Konzerthaus, and Teatro Della Pergola, Florence. The Takács will perform throughout North America, including concerts in New York, Boston, Washington DC, Princeton, Ann Arbor, Berkeley, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Vancouver, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Cleveland, and Portland.

In June 2020 The Takács Quartet was featured in the BBC television series Being Beethoven. The ensemble's 2019 cd for Hyperion of piano quintets by Amy Beach and Elgar, with pianist Garrick Ohlsson won a Presto Classical Recording of the Year.

In 2014 the Takács became the first string quartet to be awarded the Wigmore Hall Medal. The Medal, inaugurated in 2007, recognizes major International Artists who have a strong association with the Hall. Recipients include Andras Schiff, Thomas Quasthoff, Menahem Pressler and Dame Felicity Lott. In 2012,

Gramophone announced that the Takács was the first string quartet to be inducted into its Hall of Fame, along with such legendary artists as Jascha Heifetz, Leonard Bernstein and Dame Janet Baker. The ensemble also won the 2011 Award for Chamber Music and Song presented by the Royal Philharmonic Society in London.

The Takács Quartet is known for innovative programming. The ensemble performed a program inspired by Philip Roth's novel Everyman with Meryl Streep at Princeton in 2014, and again with her at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto in 2015. They first performed Everyman at Carnegie Hall in 2007 with Philip Seymour Hoffman. They have toured 14 cities with the poet Robert Pinsky, collaborate regularly with the Hungarian Folk group Muzsikas, and in 2010 they collaborated with the Colorado Shakespeare Festival and David Lawrence Morse on a drama project that explored the composition of Beethoven's last quartets.

The Takács records for Hyperion Records. The ensemble recently won a Gramophone Classical Music Award 2021 in the Chamber category for their recording of quintets by Amy Beach and Elgar with pianist Garrick Ohlsson. Their discs for Hyperion include string quartets by Haydn, Schubert, Janáček, Smetana, Debussy and Britten, as well as piano quintets by César Franck and Shostakovich (with Marc-André Hamelin), viola quintets by Brahms and Dvorák (with Lawrence Power). For their CDs on the Decca/London label, the Quartet has won three Gramophone Awards, a Grammy Award, three Japanese Record Academy Awards, Disc of the Year at the inaugural BBC Music Magazine Awards, and Ensemble Album of the Year at the Classical Brits.

Based in Boulder at the University of Colorado, the members of The Takács Quartet are Christoffersen Faculty Fellows. The Quartet has helped to develop a string program with a special emphasis on chamber music, where students work in a nurturing environment designed to help them develop their artistry. Through the university, two of the quartet's members benefit from the generous loan of instruments from the Drake Instrument Foundation. The members of the Takács are on the faculty at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, where they run an intensive summer string quartet seminar, and Visiting Fellows at the Guildhall School of Music, London.

Single tickets for The Takács Quartet, at Segerstrom Center for the Arts start at $29 and are now available online at SCFTA.org, at the Box Office at 600 Town Center Drive in Costa Mesa or by calling (714) 556-2787. For inquiries about group ticket discounts for 10 or more, call the Group Services office at (714) 755-0236.

Audience Advisory: Our updated COVID-19 policy requires ticket holders to provide proof of full vaccination against COVID-19 to attend all indoor performances and events at Segerstrom Center for the Arts. "Fully vaccinated" means your performance is at least 14 days after your final vaccine dose. To enter the theatre, please bring proof of vaccination, either your physical vaccination card, a picture of your vaccination card, or a digital vaccination record and ID's will be checked with your vaccination record. Most California residents may request a digital vaccination record at myvaccinerecord.cdph.ca.gov

Those who are under age 12 and anyone without proof of being fully vaccinated must provide proof of a negative COVID-19 PCR test taken within 72 hours (3 days) prior to entering the theatre.

Masks are required at all times for all patrons and visitors regardless of vaccination status in all indoor spaces at Segerstrom Center.

Performance ticket holders who do not comply with these policies will not be admitted.

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