The Jerusalem Quartet is an Israeli string quartet, which made its debut in 1996. Their performance repertoire is wide and includes works of Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Franz Schubert, Johannes Brahms, Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel and Dmitri Shostakovich. They have toured extensively worldwide and three of their recordings have won BBC Music Magazine Awards.
They have recorded thirteen albums for the Harmonia Mundi label. The Jerusalem Quartet celebrated their 20th season in 2016 by releasing a two-CD album of Beethoven's six string quartets op. 18, and touring the United States, Australia, and several European countries. [1]
The original line-up included the violist Amihai Grosz. Grosz joined the Berlin Philharmonic as a principal in 2010, and also plays with the Philharmonic Octet Berlin. [2]
Due to the ensemble's name and their being perceived as cultural ambassadors for Israel, the Jerusalem Quartet has been subject to protests during their performances. [5] In 2010, a performance at London's Wigmore Hall which was being broadcast live on BBC Radio 3 was disrupted by multiple hecklers. The broadcast had to be halted.
Adagio for Strings is a work by Samuel Barber arranged for string orchestra from the second movement of his String Quartet, Op. 11.
Gil Shaham is an American violinist. His accolades include a Grammy Award in 1999, and he has performed as a soloist with such orchestras as the New York Philharmonic, Berlin Philharmonic, Vienna Philharmonic, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Russian National Orchestra, Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, and the Orchestre de Paris.
Janine Jansen is a Dutch violinist and violist.
Bernard Rands is a British-American contemporary classical composer. He studied music and English literature at the University of Wales, Bangor, and composition with Pierre Boulez and Bruno Maderna in Darmstadt, Germany, and with Luigi Dallapiccola and Luciano Berio in Milan, Italy. He held residencies at Princeton University, the University of Illinois, and the University of York before emigrating to the United States in 1975; he became a U.S. citizen in 1983. In 1984, Rands's Canti del Sole, premiered by Paul Sperry, Zubin Mehta, and the New York Philharmonic, won the Pulitzer Prize for Music. He has since taught at the University of California, San Diego, the Juilliard School, Yale University, and Boston University. From 1988 to 2005 he taught at Harvard University, where he is Walter Bigelow Rosen Professor of Music Emeritus.
Gilad Karni is an Israeli violist who has played in the New York Philharmonic and is currently principal viola in the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich as well as a soloist and player in chamber ensembles. A founder member of the Huberman Quartet, with which he made his debut at Carnegie Hall, he has since appeared there with the Guarneri Quartet.
Tabea Zimmermann is a German violist who has performed internationally, both as a soloist and a chamber musician. She has been artist in residence of the Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Berlin Philharmonic, and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. In 2004, Zimmermann founded the Arcanto Quartet, a string quartet that performed until 2016. Several composers have written music for her, including György Ligeti, and she has made her own version of Bartók's Viola Concerto from the composer's sketches.
James Zuill Bailey, better known as Zuill Bailey is an American Grammy Award-winning cello soloist, chamber musician, and artistic director. A graduate of the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University and the Juilliard School, he has appeared in recital and with major orchestras internationally. He is a professor of cello and Director of the Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Texas at El Paso. Bailey’s extensive recording catalogue are released on TELARC, Avie, Steinway and Sons, Octave, Delos, Albany, Sono Luminus, Naxos, Azica, Concord, EuroArts, ASV, Oxingale and Zenph Studios.
Yuri Sergeyevich Kasparov is a Russian composer, music teacher and a professor at the Moscow Conservatory where he had studied for his doctorate under Edison Denisov. Under the patronage of Denisov, he founded the Moscow Contemporary Music Ensemble in 1990 and is its artistic director. He is the chairman of the Russian section of the International Society for Contemporary Music.
Avner Dorman is an Israeli-born composer, educator and conductor.
Barnabás Kelemen is a Hungarian violinist, chamber musician, and professor. He is the founder and artistic director of the Festival Academy Budapest and he co-established the Kelemen Quartet. His work has been recognized with the highest professional and state honors: he has been awarded Liszt, Bartók-Pásztory and Kossuth Prizes, Prima and the London-based Gramophone Awards, and is the holder of the Knight's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary.
Mark Grey is an American classical music composer, sound designer and sound engineer.
Alexander Markovich Melnikov is a Russian pianist. His grandmother was the Soviet pianist and composer Zara Levina.
Craig Leon is an American-born record producer, composer and arranger currently living in England. Leon was instrumental in launching the careers of many recording artists including the Ramones, Suicide, Talking Heads and Blondie.
The Diapason d'Or is a recommendation of outstanding (mostly) classical music recordings given by reviewers of Diapason magazine in France, broadly equivalent to "Editor's Choice", "Disc of the Month" in the British Gramophone magazine.
Benjamin Yusupov is a classical composer, conductor and pianist.
The International Classical Music Awards (ICMA) are music awards first awarded 6 April 2011. ICMA replace the Cannes Classical Awards formerly awarded at MIDEM. The jury consists of music critics of magazines Andante, Crescendo, Fono Forum, Gramofon, Kultura, Musica, Musik & Theater, Opera, Pizzicato, Rondo Classic, Scherzo, with radio stations MDR Kultur (Germany), Orpheus Radio 99.2FM (Russia), Radio 100,7 (Luxembourg), the International Music and Media Centre (IMZ) (Austria), website Resmusica.com (France) and radio Classic (Finland).
Amihai Grosz is an Israeli violist. From 1995 to 2009, he was the violist with the Jerusalem Quartet. Since 2010, Grosz has been the Principal Violist of the Berlin Philharmonic.
Roman Mints is a British violinist. He has worked with other violinists and together with oboist Dmitry Bulgakov founded the Homecoming Chamber Music Festival. He has given premieres of various works and recorded a number of albums.
Antje Weithaas is a German classical violinist. Apart from solo recitals and chamber music performances, she has played with leading orchestras in Europe, Asia and the United States.
Timothy Ridout is a British violist and 1st Prizewinner of the prestigious Lionel Tertis International Viola Competition.