American String Quartet performs
works by Mozart, Brahms, and Berg

Violist Timothy Deighton, an associate professor of music at Penn State, teams with the New York City-based American String Quartet to perform Brahms’ Quintet in F Major, Spring, and Mozart’s Quintet No. 3 in C Major at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, October 21, in Penn State’s Schwab Auditorium. The program also includes Alban Berg’s String Quartet, Op. 3.

The presentation of the Berg quartet, a groundbreaking work composed in 1910, is part of the Penn State Institute for the Arts and Humanities 2008–2009 Moments of Change multidisciplinary initiative Astonish Me! The Turn of the Twentieth Century (1889–1914).

Last season at Penn State the quartet and Deighton came together for the first time to perform Brahms’ other quintet.

The quartet members are renowned collaborative musicians, but violinists Peter Winograd and Laurie Carney, violist Daniel Avshalomov, and cellist Wolfram Koessel are also educators, innovators, champions of new music, soloists and more.

The ensemble, which has performed in most of the important chamber music venues around the world, has been the resident quartet at the Aspen Music Festival since 1974 and the Manhattan School of Music since 1984.

The quartet’s activities have also included numerous international radio and television broadcasts, tours of Asia, and performances with the New York City ballet, the Montreal Symphony, and the Philadelphia Orchestra.

In addition to teaching viola and chamber music, Deighton directs the Penn State Viola Ensemble. He performs as a soloist, chamber musician, and guest with orchestras.

He has performed U.S. and international premieres of many works by contemporary composers. He’s attracted to contemporary works, in part, because it allows him to be on the cutting edge of a comparatively young repertoire.

Artistic Viewpoints, an informal moderated discussion featuring American String Quartet violist Daniel Avshalomov and Marie Sumner Lott, assistant professor of musicology at Penn State, is offered in Schwab Auditorium one hour before the performance and is free for ticket holders.

For more information about Moments of Change, contact Institute for the Arts and Humanities Director Marica S. Tacconi or visit the institute online.

Sanders Window Fashions

The Norma and Ralph Condee Chamber Music Endowment underwrites chamber music presentations at the Center for the Performing Arts.

 

Charles Youmans, associate professor of musicology at Penn State, speaks with PreViews Editor John Mark Rafacz about Austrian composer Alban Berg and the significance of Berg’s groundbreaking String Quartet, Op. 3, being performed by the American String Quartet.