Los Angeles Piano Quartet

This program will include a piece by composer Christopher Stark made possible by a grant from the Fromm Music Foundation.

Cello Sonata, Op. 6 (1932)  -  Samuel Barber (1910 - 1981)

Piano Quartet (2014)  -  Christopher Stark

Piano Quartet No. 2, Op. 87  (1889)  -  Antonin Dvořák (1841 - 1904)

Ticketed event. Tickets can be purchased HERE.
$20-General Admission
$15-WU Fac/staff, seniors
$5-Students

 

The Los Angeles Piano Quartet made its debut at The Music Center in Los Angeles in 1977, and soon earned recognition as America’s premier piano quartet. The vibrant ensemble has been repeatedly re-engaged by major chamber music presenters, and hailed by the public and press in New York, Washington, Detroit, St. Louis, Chicago, Dallas, St. Paul, Phoenix, Houston, Salt Lake City, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. The Quartet has been a popular guest on Minnesota Public Radio’s “St. Paul Sunday” and New York’s “Live from WNCN,” and has been featured at the Bermuda and Tucson Festivals and the Eugene and Carmel Bach Festivals.

Following an impressive international debut at the Cheltenham Festival in England, the Los Angeles Piano Quartet was engaged for an appearance at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and an extensive tour of Europe. Highlights of subsequent European tours have included two additional appearances at the Concertgebouw, and concerts at the Hamburg Musikhalle and Santa Cecilia in Rome.

The Los Angeles Piano Quartet has been an active force in the creation of new works for piano quartet, commissioning works from such prominent contemporary composers as Stephen Hartke, Gerard Schurmann, and Pulitzer Prize-winner Steven Stucky, whose piano quartet had its premiere performance by the LAPQ at the 2005 Tucson Festival. The ensemble has been supported in this activity by the National Endowment for the Arts and Chamber Music America.

Their recordings include the 2009 Chandos release of works by composer Stephen Hartke, Dvorak and Schumann on the MusicMasters label, and the two Fauré piano quartets on Pickwick.

 

Mikhail Kopelman graduated from the Moscow Conservatory where he studied with Maya Glezarova and Yuri Yankelevich. In 1973 he was a prize winner in the Jacques Thibaud International Competition in Paris.

A former member of the Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra and concertmaster of the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra, Kopelman was appointed first violin of the Borodin String Quartet in 1976, and played with the ensemble for two decades. As a member of the Borodin Quartet, he has been awarded the State Prize of the USSR, and has been named People’s Artist of the Russian Federation.

From 1980-1993 Kopelman was on the faculty of the Moscow Conservatory. He has given master classes in the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Germany, Finland, Denmark, Austria, Japan, Spain, Holland, Russia, Belgium, and the United States.
Since 1993 Mikhail Kopelman and his family have lived in the United States. In 1995, he received the Royal Philharmonic Society Award and the Concertgebouw Silver Medal of Honor. He joined the Tokyo String Quartet as first violinist in 1996 and from 1996-2002 he was a professor at the Yale School of Music, coaching chamber music.

In 2002, with the purpose of continuing the rich traditions of the Russian school of quartet playing, he founded the Kopelman Quartet together with some of his contemporaries from the Moscow Conservatoire. He was in the same year appointed Professor of Violin at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, USA, a position he continues to hold.

Kopelman has performed in many international festivals including: Edinburgh, Hong Kong, Schleswig-Holstein, Florence, Salzburg, Tours, Moscow, Zurich, Prague Spring, Ravinia Festival, Santa Fe, Caramoor, Norfolk, and the Mostly Mozart Festival in New York City.

For over 15 years he was closely associated with Sviatoslav Richter in numerous performances and recordings, both in the USSR and abroad. His long and distinguished career as a chamber musician has also brought him together with artists including Mstislav Rostropovich, Tatiana Nikolayeva, Gidon Kremer, Natalia Gutman, Elisabeth Leonskaja, Alicia de Larrocha, Christoph Eschenbach, Yuri Bashmet, Victor Tretyakov, Elisso Virsaladze, Bruno Canino, Bella Davidovich, and Emanuel Ax.

Mikhail Kopelman has also served as a jury member of several international competitions. These have included: Evian, Beijing and ARD Munich String Quartet Competitions, Indianapolis, and Queen Elizabeth International Violin Competitions.

Mikhail Kopelman has made many recordings for the Melodia, EMI, Virgin Classics, Teldec, Philips, Nimbus and Wigmore Live labels.

Violist Katherine Murdock has become widely recognized as a soloist, chamber musician, and teacher. She has performed throughout the world with such groups as the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the Boston Chamber Music Society, and the Brandenburg Ensemble. For six years, Ms. Murdock was a member of the Mendelssohn String Quartet, with which she toured internationally as well as held positions at Harvard University and the University of Delaware. A past participant in the Marlboro Festival, she has toured the nation with Music from Marlboro, and performed on their fortieth anniversary concerts in Philadelphia and New York. Ms. Murdock has performed as soloist on West German Radio and the BBC; she has appeared on the ‘Great Performers at Lincoln Center’ chamber series, live on NPR’s “Performance Today”, “St. Paul Sunday”, and the NBC “Today Show”.

Ms. Murdock has been a participant in numerous festivals, including the Edinburgh, Salzburg, and Gulbenkian Festivals, the International Musicians Seminar at Prussia Cove, and in the U.S. at Aspen, Tanglewood, Mostly Mozart, Ravinia, La Musica of Sarasota, and the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. She has served on the faculties of the Boston Conservatory, Wellesley College, and the Hartt School of Music. She is currently on the faculty of the University of Maryland; during the summers she is on the artist-faculty of the Yellow Barn and Kneisel Hall festivals. She is also a member of the Left Bank Quartet of Washington D.C. Ms Murdock has recorded for Albany Records, Music Masters Classics, Northeastern Records, Laurel Records, and Deutsche Grammophone.

Ms. Murdock joined the Los Angeles Piano Quartet in 1995.

Internationally known as soloist, chamber musician, and master teacher, cellist Steven Doane maintains an active schedule of performances throughout the US and overseas. He travels frequently to the United Kingdom for recitals, clinics, and master classes, and has performed concertos in recent seasons in Edinburgh, Scotland, and Dublin, Ireland. Recital appearances as duo partner with pianist Barry Snyder have included concerts at New York’s Alice Tully Hall, Boston’s Sanders Theater, two recitals at London’s Wigmore Hall, and numerous other engagements in the U.S. and U.K. The second in a series of recordings for the Bridge label with Mr. Snyder (works by Benjamin Britten and Frank Bridge) won a 1996 Naird award in the U.S. music press, and the Bridge Sonata was declared “the best performance on record” by BBC music magazine. An earlier disc on the Bridge label of the complete works for cello and piano by Faure received a “petit Diapson d’Or” from the French recording press.

Mr. Doane is currently Professor of Cello at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester N.Y. where he has taught for 25 years. Between 1995 and 1999 Mr. Doane was an associate in cello at the Royal College of Music in London, and, following a series of master classes at the Royal Academy in London, has been named visiting professor by that institution. In addition to his recordings on the Bridge label, Mr. Doane has recorded for Pantheon, Daedmon, Gasparo and Sony.

Mr. Doane joined the Los Angeles Piano Quartet in 2007.

Pianist Xak Bjerken has given solo and chamber music recitals throughout Europe and the United States. Orchestral solo appearances include Edinburgh with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Rome with the Spoleto Festival Orchestra and in Disney Hall, Los Angeles, with members of the LA Philharmonic. He has performed at the Royal Concertgebouw Hall in Amsterdam, Alice Tully Hall, Weill Hall, and the Kennedy Center and has given recitals in Germany, Switzerland, Spain and Hungary.

Mr. Bjerken has held chamber music residencies at the Tanglewood Music Center and the Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy, performed at the Olympic Music Festival, the Tucson Winter Chamber Music Festival, and served on the faculty of the Eastern Music Festival. His first solo recording for CRI, released in 2001, was entitled “High Rise;” he has also recorded for Chandos, Albany Records, and Koch International and has made two recordings with violist Michael Zaretsky for the Artona label. Mr. Bjerken earned degrees from UCLA, as a student of Aube Tzerko, and the Peabody Conservatory, where he studied with and was the teaching assistant of Leon Fleisher. He is Associate Professor of Piano at Cornell University, where he co-directs Mayfest, an international chamber music festival with his wife, pianist Miri Yampolsky

Mr. Bjerken joined the Los Angeles Piano Quartet in 1998.