The Emerson String Quartet, also known as the Emerson Quartet, is an American string quartet that was initially formed as a student group at the Juilliard School in the 1970s. It was named for American poet and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson and began touring professionally in 1976. The ensemble taught in residence at The Hartt School in the 1980s and is currently (2022) the quartet in residence at Stony Brook University. Both of the founding violinists studied with Oscar Shumsky at Juilliard, and the two alternated as first and second violinists for the group. The Emerson Quartet was one of the first such ensembles with the two violinists alternating chairs.
The Gramophone Classical Music Awards, launched in 1977, are one of the most significant honours bestowed on recordings in the classical record industry. They are often viewed as equivalent to or surpassing the American Grammy award, and referred to as the Oscars for classical music. They are widely regarded as the most influential and prestigious classical music awards in the world. According to Matthew Owen, national sales manager for Harmonia Mundi USA, "ultimately it is the classical award, especially worldwide."
The Melos Quartet was a much-recorded, Stuttgart-based string quartet active from 1965 until 2005, when its first violin died. It also went by the name Melos Quartett Stuttgart, partly to distinguish itself from the equally prominent chamber group the Melos Ensemble of London.
Martin Beaver is a Canadian violinist best known as first violinist of the Tokyo String Quartet. Beaver joined the Tokyo String Quartet as its first violinist in 2002 and remained until they disbanded in 2013. As a part of the Tokyo String Quartet, he played the Paganini-Comte Cozio di Salabue violin on loan from the Nippon Foundation, part of the Paganini Quartet collection of instruments made by Antonio Stradivari. He currently performs on a violin made by the luthier Nicola Bergonzi. Now on faculty at the Colburn School in Los Angeles, he remains active in both chamber music and as a soloist, and established the Montrose Trio with pianist Jon Kimura Parker and cellist Clive Greensmith.
Nikolai Lvovich Lugansky is a Russian pianist.
David Shifrin is an American classical clarinetist and artistic director.
The Hagen Quartet is an Austrian string quartet founded in 1981 by four siblings, Lukas, Angelika, Veronika and Clemens, in Salzburg. The quartet members are teachers and mentors at the Salzburg Mozarteum and the Hochschule für Musik Basel. The ensemble made its Salzburg Festival debut in 1984. The complete recordings of the Mozart string quartets were released in 2006. In the 2012–2013 season, the Hagen Quartet performed the complete Beethoven cycle in New York, Tokyo, Paris, London, Salzburg and Vienna. They performed, between December 2013 and August 2017, on the four famous Stradivarius instruments played previously by the Paganini Quartet, the Cleveland String Quartet, and the Tokyo String Quartet, respectively. Those instruments are now being played by the Quartetto di Cremona.
Toho Gakuen School of Music is a private music school in Chōfu, Tokyo, Japan.
Oleg Maisenberg is a Soviet-Austrian pianist and teacher.
Bejun Mehta is an American countertenor. He has been awarded the Echo Klassik, the Gramophone Award, Le Diamant d’Opera Magazine, the Choc de Classica, the Traetta Prize, and been nominated for the Grammy Award, the Laurence Olivier Award, and the Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik. Writing in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Michael Stallknecht called him "arguably the best counter tenor in the world today."
Harmonia Mundi is an independent record label which specializes in classical music, jazz, and world music. It was founded in France in 1958 and is now a subsidiary of PIAS Entertainment Group.
Maurice Steger is a Swiss recorder player and conductor, mostly in Baroque music.
The Henschel Quartet is a German string quartet comprising the Henschel siblings; Christoph and Markus (violinists), Monika (viola) and Mathias Beyer-Karlshøj (cellist), who joined them in 1994. Brother Markus left the quartet in 2010, and was succeeded by Daniel Bell in 2012. In 2016–2018 Catalin Desaga took the place of the second violin. Today the Quartet consists of following members: Christoph Henschel and Teresa La Cour (violinists), Monika Henschel (viola) and Mathias Beyer-Karlshøj (cello).
The Trio Wanderer is a French piano trio made up of Vincent Coq, piano, Jean-Marc Phillips-Varjabédian, violin and Raphaël Pidoux, cello, who graduated from the Conservatoire de Paris. In 1988 they won the ARD International Music Competition in Munich, and in 1990 the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition in the US.
Jon Manasse is an American clarinetist.
Leonard Hokanson was an American pianist who achieved prominence in Europe as a soloist and chamber musician. Born in Vinalhaven, Maine, he attended Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts and Bennington College in Vermont, where he received a master of arts degree with a major in music. He made his concert debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra at the age of eighteen. Drafted into the U.S. Army after graduate school, he was posted to Augsburg, Germany. He achieved early recognition as a performer in Europe, serving as a soloist with such orchestras as the Berlin Philharmonic, the Rotterdam Philharmonic, and the Vienna Symphony. He was awarded the Steinway Prize of Boston and was a prizewinner at the Busoni International Piano Competition in Bolzano, Italy. His numerous international music festival appearances included Aldeburgh, Berlin, Echternach, Lucerne, Prague, Ravinia, Salzburg, Schleswig-Holstein, Tanglewood, and Vienna.
The Cuarteto Casals is a Spanish string quartet based at l'Auditori in Barcelona, where all four members reside and teach at the Escola Superior de Musica de Catalunya.
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.
Michael Dussek is an English pianist specialising in chamber music and song accompaniment.
Hymn: Largo cantabile, S. 84/1, sometimes also referred to as Largo cantabile: Hymn and often shortened as Hymn, is a composition by American composer Charles Ives written in 1904. Grouped in the suite A Set of Three Short Pieces, it is published and commonly performed as a standalone work.
