Chamber Music Raleigh Opens Its 74^th Season with Pacifica/McGill

This preview is provided by Chamber Music Raleigh.

On Sunday September 27, 2015 at 3pm Chamber Music Raleigh will present the Pacifica Quartet with clarinetist Anthony McGill.  The concert is at Hayes Barton United Methodist Church, 2209 Fairview Road in Raleigh.

This concert marks the opening of the 74^th season of Chamber Music Raleigh, organized in 1941 as the Raleigh Chamber Music Guild.  In May 2015, the organization rebranded to modernize and better reflect the organization’s mission.

Formed in 1994, the Pacifica Quartet quickly won chamber music’s top competitions, including the 1998 Naumburg Chamber Music Award. In 2002 the ensemble was honored with Chamber Music America’s Cleveland Quartet Award and the appointment to Lincoln Center’s CMS Two, and in 2006 was awarded a prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant, becoming only the second chamber ensemble so honored in the Grant’s long history. In 2009, the Quartet was named “Ensemble of the Year” by Musical America.

The members of the Pacifica Quartet live in Bloomington, IN, where they serve as quartet-in-residence and full-time faculty members at the Jacobs School of Music. Prior to their appointment, the Quartet was on the faculty of the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana from 2003 to 2012. The Pacifica Quartet also serves as resident performing artist at the University of Chicago.

Recognized as one of the classical music world’s finest solo, chamber and orchestral musicians, Anthony McGill was named Principal Clarinet of the New York Philharmonic effective September 15, 2014. He previously served as Principal Clarinet of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Associate Principal Clarinet of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.

The Pacifica Quartet’s collaboration with Anthony McGill began in 2013 and proved to be wildly popular.  Cedille Records invited the artists to record the Mozart and Brahms Clarinet Quintets. Widely considered among the greatest chamber works for clarinet and strings, these quintets are both mature pieces that are captured with virtuosic mastery in this recording.

For their concert in Raleigh, the Pacifica Quartet will perform Mozart’s String Quartet in F Major, K. 590 as well as Shulamit Ran’s String Quartet No. 3 – Glitter, Doom, Shards, Memory.  They will be joined by Anthony McGill on the second half of the concert for Brahms’ Clarinet Quintet in B minor, Op. 115.

Tickets are $28 adults, $15 young professionals under 40 years old, $10 college students.  Students age 18 and under are free with the purchase of an adult or young professional ticket and are available at the door on the day of the concert.  To purchase tickets online, please visit www.chambermusicraleigh.org or call 919-821-2030 for more information.