JUILLIARD STRING QUARTET

Joel Smirnoff - Violine

Ronald Copes - Violine

Samuel Rhodes - Viola

Joel Krosnick, - Violoncello

The Juilliard String Quartet is internationally renowned and admired for performances characterized by a clarity of structure, beauty of sound, purity of line and an extraordinary unanimity of purpose. Celebrated for its performances of works by composers as diverse as Beethoven, Schubert, Bartók and Elliott Carter, it has been recognized for over 50 years as the quintessential American string quartet.

The 2004/05 season begins with return visits to the Ravinia, and Tanglewood festivals, and includes appearances on major concert series  throughout the United States, Europe and Asia. Joined by famed oboist Heinz Holliger, the Quartet will perform in Montreal, Detroit, Philadelphia, Anchorage, Fairbanks, San Francisco, as well as at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.  In early October the ensemble opens its 42nd season as Quartet in Residence at the Library of Congress with a special runout tour to three notable musical institutions in Southern California. Partners with the Library in the project – which includes free concerts, masterclasses and educational outreach programs - are the Arts and Lectures Program at the University of California at Santa Barbara, the Idyllwild Arts Academy, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Walt Disney Concert Hall.

In 2003 The Quartet marked the celebration of its 40th anniversary as Quartet in Residence at the Library of Congress with a twelve-concert complete Beethoven cycle interspersed with works by American composers whose works the Quartet has championed throughout its existence.  Succeeding the Budapest Quartet in 1962, the Quartet has acquired a devoted following in Washington and is recognized as the "First Family" of chamber music in the United States. The Quartet performs at the Library of Congress on a set of priceless Stradivari instruments which were donated to the Library in 1936 by Mrs. Gertrude Clarke Whittall.

The 2003/04 season also included a round of summer festivals, followed by tours across the United States, Canada and Europe. The ensemble presented several concerts in New York, including a performance at the Mostly Mozart Festival, two concerts at Alice Tully Hall on the Juilliard School's faculty series, chamber music at the 92nd Street Y, and a concert in the opening season of Carnegie Hall’s new Zankel Hall. In May, the ensemble was honored with the Gold Medal of the National Arts Club at its 48th Annual Dinner.

           Special events of recent seasons included a week of concerts and masterclasses at the University of Southern California, and an Art of the Fugue marathon at the University of Arizona in Tucson, where they performed the Bach masterwork 3 times in two days.  At Carnegie Hall, the Juilliard Quartet appeared in the Hall’s 100th anniversary gala, and in Maurizio Pollini’s "Perspectives" series with pianist Martha Argerich.  The Juilliards played the opening concert in the Seiji Ozawa Hall at Tanglewood, and are the lead-off artists in the recent 10th anniversary recording celebrating Ozawa Hall where they appear annually.  They have been frequent guests at the Miyazaki Festival in Japan, and at festivals in Europe including the Lucerne Festival and the Schubertiade in Feldkirch.  The Juilliard Quartet has played complete seven-concert Beethoven cycles at Alice Tully Hall in New York, Casals Hall in Tokyo, at Michigan State University, and most recently, at the International Beethoven Festival in Bonn and at the Tonhalle in Düsseldorf.

In a departure from the classical norm, the Juilliard Quartet has twice been the featured ensemble -- comedic and musical -- on Garrison Keillor’s "Prairie Home Companion" radio show.

         As Quartet in Residence at New York City's Juilliard School, the Juilliard String Quartet is widely admired for its seminal influence on aspiring string players around the world. The Quartet continues to play an important role in the formation of new American ensembles, and was instrumental in the formation of the Alexander, American, Concord, Emerson, La Salle, New World, Mendelssohn, Tokyo, Brentano, Lark, St. Lawrence, and Colorado string quartets.

                  In a momentous occasion at Tanglewood in 1997, the Juilliard String Quartet's founder and first violinist Robert Mann retired from the group after fifty years. Earlier that season, Musical America named the Quartet "Musicians of the Year," making it the first chamber music ensemble ever to appear on the cover of the publication's annual International Directory of the Performing Arts.

           In its history, the Juilliard String Quartet has performed a comprehensive repertoire of some 500 works, ranging from the great classical composers to masters of the current century.  It was the first ensemble to play all six Bartók quartets in the United States, and it was through the group's performances that the quartets of Arnold Schoenberg were rescued from obscurity. An ardent champion of contemporary American music, the Quartet has premiered more than 60 compositions of American composers, including works by some of America's finest jazz musicians. The Quartet has become a persuasive advocate for the complex and visionary string quartets of Elliott Carter, and a landmark recording of those works was issued in 1991 by Sony Classical.

The ensemble has been associated with Sony Classical, in its various incarnations, since 1949. In celebration of the Quartet's 50th anniversary, Sony released seven CDs containing previously unreleased material as well as notable performances from the Quartet's award-winning discography. With more than 100 releases to its credit, the ensemble is one of the most widely recorded string quartets of our time; and its recordings of the complete Beethoven quartets, the complete Schoenberg quartets, and the Debussy and Ravel string quartets have all received Grammy Awards. Inducted into the Hall of Fame of the National Academy for Recording Arts and Sciences in 1986 for its recording of the complete Bartók string quartets, the Juilliard Quartet was awarded the Deutsche Schallplattenkritik Prize in 1993 for Lifetime Achievement in the recording industry. In 1994, its recording of quartets by Ravel, Debussy, and Dutilleux was chosen by the Times of London as one of the 100 best classical CDs ever recorded.