Orion String Quartet
April 29, 2008
Mendelssohn: String Quartet, Op. 13
Lowell Liebermann: String Quartet
Beethoven: String Quartet, Op. 132
About the Artists
The Orion String Quartet is one of the most sought after ensembles in the United States. It remains on the cutting edge of programming with numerous commissions from composers Chick Corea, Alexander Goehr, John Harbison, Leon Kirchner, Marc Neikrug, Peter Lieberson, and Wynton Marsalis, and enjoys a creative partnership with the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company. With over fifty performances this year, the members of the Orion String Quartet - violinists Daniel Phillips and Todd Phillips (brothers who share the first violin chair equally), violist Steven Tenenbom and cellist Timothy Eddy - have worked with such legendary figures as Pablo Casals, Rudolf Serkin, Isaac Stern, Pinchas Zukerman, Yo-Yo Ma, Peter Serkin, Andras Schiff, members of TASHI and the Beaux Arts Trio, as well as the Budapest, Vegh, Galimir, and Guarneri String Quartets. Its repertoire this season includes cycles of Beethoven and Mozart, in addition to mixed programs of Haydn, Mendelssohn, Schubert, Dvorak, Bartok, Zwilich, and Schulhoff. The Orion serves as Quartet-in-Residence at The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and New York's Mannes College of Music and are Artists in Residence at Indiana University.
In August 2006, the Orion String Quartet performed at the Music@Menlo Festival and gave the world premiere of Leon Kirchner's String Quartet No.4 at La Jolla SummerFest. The premiere was followed by performances at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, a co-commissioner of this work along with The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and Philadelphia Chamber Music Society. The quartet returns to Indiana University for the fourth consecutive season and is now Artist in Residence at its prestigious music school. Additional engagements in North America take the quartet to Boston, Pittsburgh, Ottawa, and Kalamazoo, Michigan.
The Quartet has achieved a reputation for its interpretation of the Beethoven String Quartets. In May 2000, the ensemble performed the entire cycle in a series of free concerts at Alice Tully Hall, with additional outreach activities in four boroughs of New York City. Presented in conjunction with The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Beethoven 2000 supported six New York community arts organizations in honor of their contribution to children's education. The Quartet has subsequently performed the complete Beethoven cycle in Kansas City, Pittsburgh, Deerfield (MA), Indiana University in Bloomington, and a multi-season cycle is currently underway in San Juan, PR. The critically lauded, five-concert performance cycle in Pittsburgh took place over a period of three days. According to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, "The ensemble's performances had the seemingly infinite attention to detail - from the voicing of a chord to the nuance of a phrase - tthat results from their long and loving exploration of Beethoven's quartets."
The members of the Quartet maintain a strong dedication to the next generation of musical artists and serve on the faculties of the Mannes College of Music, Curtis Institute of Music, Juilliard School, and Queens College, where they teach private lessons, give chamber music classes, and offer intensive coaching programs for young professional string quartets. The members have also served as faculty members of the Isaac Stern Chamber Music Workshop at Carnegie Hall and the Summer Institute for Advanced Quartet Studies in Aspen. Since 1993, the Orion String Quartet has maintained a summer residency at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival that included a three-year project of commissioned quartets by Danish composer Per Norgard, John Harbison, and Chick Corea. The Quartet also premiered Marc Neikrug's piano quintet as part of the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival which was subsequently recorded with Corea's The Adventures of Hippocrates and John Harbison's Quartet No.4 released on Koch Records in 2006.
Since its inception, the Orion String Quartet has been consistently praised for the fresh perspective and individuality it brings to performances, offering diverse programs that juxtapose classic works of the standard quartet literature with masterworks by living composers; the Quartet's recordings reflect this diversity. For SONY Classical, the Orion recorded Wynton Marsalis's first classical composition for strings, At the Octoroon Balls (String Quartet No. 1). Commissioned by The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the work was written for and premiered by the ensemble. Other critically acclaimed recordings include Dvorak's "American" String Quartet and Piano Quintet with Peter Serkin and Mendelssohn's Octet with the Guarneri String Quartet, both on Arabesque. The quartet is currently recording the complete Beethoven quartets for Koch Records and the first disc will be released in October 2006.
Heard on National Public Radio's Performance Today, the Orion String Quartet has also appeared on A&E's Breakfast with the Arts, PBS's Live From Lincoln Center, and three times on ABC-TV's Good Morning America. In October 2004, the quartet participated in the first WNYC Radio collaboration with BBC World Service's popular syndicated program, Music Party. This special performance heard in New York and over 40 countries worldwide features works by Haydn, Beethoven, Ravel, Bartok, Chick Corea, and Wynton Marsalis. Additionally, the Quartet was photographed with Drew Barrymore by Annie Leibovitz for the April 2005 issue of Vogue.
The Orion String Quartet gained immediate attention in the classical music world when its founding members, each with distinguished solo and chamber music careers, officially formed the ensemble in 1987. The Quartet chose its name from the Orion constellation as a metaphor for the unique personality each musician brings to the group in its collective pursuit of the highest musical ideals.
"The persuasive power of the performance came from the exquisiteness and eloquence the four players brought to their lines. But it also came from how all of them phrased together -- and, it seemed, breathed together." The New York Times
"The group's playing and interpretation was consistently beguiling and technically impeccable. The four extremely virtuosic and accomplished players of the Orion Quartet seem to have been born to be together." The Los Angeles Times
Violinist Daniel Phillips toured this past September through the United Kingdom with a chamber concert group from the International Musicians Seminar in Cornwall; the trip concluded with a concert in London's Wigmore Hall. In addition to his professorship at the Aaron Copland School of Music in Queens College, he will work during the current academic year with members of Arnold Steinhardt's violin class at Rutgers University while Mr. Steinhardt is on sabbatical. A founding member of the Orion String Quartet, Mr. Phillips was born to a musical family and began violin studies at age four with his father, Eugene Phillips, a composer and former violinist with the Pittsburgh Symphony. He received his formal training at The Juilliard School with Ivan Galamian, Sally Thomas, and Sandor Vegh, for whom he was a teaching assistant. As winner of the Young Concert Artists International Auditions he appeared in recital at Alice Tully Hall and the 92nd Street Y. He has performed with the Pittsburgh, Houston, New Jersey, Phoenix, San Antonio, and Yakima symphonies and, as chamber musician, appears regularly at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Spoleto, Chamber Music Northwest, and Music from Angel Fire. Currently violin soloist with the Bach Aria Group, he has recorded for the SONY Classical, Nonesuch, Bridge, and Musical Heritage labels. He has collaborated on a series of concerts devoted to Schumann's chamber music played on period instruments at London's Barbican Hall; in addition, he performed the premiere of Alexander Goehr's Suite for Violin and Piano with Peter Serkin in Berlin and Vienna. Mr. Phillips lives in New York with his wife, flutist Tara Helen O'Connor. He plays a Stradivarius violin crafted in 1702.
Violinist Todd Phillips plays Mozart�s Sinfonia Concertante with the Park Avenue Chamber Orchestra in January, performing the viola rather than the violin. He is also teaching for a semester at Rutgers University, replacing Arnold Steinhardt who is on sabbatical leave. Mr. Phillips has appeared with leading orchestras in the United Sates, Europe, and Japan, among them the Pittsburgh Symphony, the New York String Orchestra, and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, with which he recorded the violin part of Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante for Deutsche Grammophon. As chamber musician, he has appeared at the Mostly Mozart, Ravinia, Santa Fe, Marlboro, and Spoleto festivals and with Chamber Music at the 92nd Street Y and New York Philomusica. He has collaborated with such renowned artists as Rudolf Serkin, Jaime Laredo, Richard Stoltzman, Peter Serkin, and Pinchas Zuckerman and has participated in 18 Musicians from Marlboro tours. He has recorded for the Arabesque, Delos, Finlandia, Marlboro Recording Society, New York Philomusica, RCA Red Seal, and SONY Classical labels and plays a violin newly made for him by Brooklyn violinmaker Samuel Zygmuntowicz. A member of the violin and chamber music faculties of Mannes College of Music, he has recently celebrated his first wedding anniversary with his wife, violinist Catherine Cho.
Violist Steven Tenenbom has recently joined the faculty of the newly instituted Conservatory of Music at Bard College. He has performed as soloist with the Utah Symphony, the Rochester Philharmonic, and the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra. He has toured with the Brandenburg Ensemble throughout the United States and Japan and, as guest artist, has appeared with the Guarneri and Emerson string quartets and the Beaux Arts and Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson trios. His festival appearances include Mostly Mozart, Aspen, Ravinia, Marlboro, Santa Fe, Chamber Music Northwest, Music from Angel Fire, Bravo! Vail Valley and June music festivals. A recipient of the Coleman Chamber Music award and a former member of the Galimir String Quartet, he is currently a member of Tashi and of OPUS ONE, a piano quartet that includes his wife, violinist Ida Kavafian, pianist Anne-Marie McDermott, and cellist Peter Wiley. OPUS ONE has recently recorded both Dvoř�k piano quartets. Director of the String Chamber Music Studies and Performances Program at The Curtis Institute, he has recorded for the RCA, Arabebsque, Delos, ECM, Marlboro Recording Society, and SONY Classical labels. To open the inaugural year of the Bard Conservatory, Mr. Tenenbom and his wife performed the Mozart Sinfonia Concertante with the Bard Orchestra. The couple lives in Connecticut, where they raise, train, and show vizslas, Hungarian hunting dogs, under the kennel name Opus One Vizslas. He plays a Gasparo de Salo viola built circa 1560.
Cellist Timothy Eddy will appear later this season with pianist Gilbert Kalish at the Mannes College of Music. He is also scheduled to record George Crumb's Sonata for Solo Cello for Bridge Records. Mr. Eddy has appeared as soloist with the orchestras of Dallas, Colorado, Jacksonville, North Carolina, and Stamford, and has appeared at the Mostly Mozart, Ravinia, Aspen, Santa Fe, Marlboro, Lockenhaus, Spoleto, and Sarasota festivals. Schooled in the Casals tradition, he has worked directly with Pablo Casals in Puerto Rico and Marlboro. Winner in 1975 of the Gaspar Cassado International Violoncello Competition in Italy, he is currently professor of cello at The Juilliard School and the Mannes College. A faculty member of the Isaac Stern Chamber Music Workshop at Carnegie Hall from 1993 to 2001, and a former member of the Galimir Quartet, the New York Philomusica, and the Bach Aria Group, Mr. Eddy is a founding member of the Orion String Quartet. He has recorded for the Angel, Arabesque, Colombia, CRI, Delos, Koch, Musical Heritage, New World, Nonesuch, SONY Classical, Vanguard, and Vox labels. Timothy Eddy lives in Westchester County, New York, with his wife, violist Linda Moss Eddy. He plays a Matteo Goffriller cello made in 1728.