Spokane String Quartet

Cellist Michal Palzewicz joins the Spokane String Quartet for Glazunov’s String Quintet in A Major at the SSQ’s next concert at 3 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 9, at The Fox Theater.

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Palzewicz has performed extensively throughout the United States and Europe, both as a soloist and ensemble player. He has performed to great acclaim at prestigious venues such as Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall in New York City and Wigmore Hall in England. He attended Warsaw Conservatory of Music in Poland and then The Manhattan School of Music, where his quartet received full scholarships as well as artist-in-residence status. He currently teaches cello at Southern Oregon University. He joins the SSQ for this concert for a piano quintet by Alexander Glazunov. Also on the program are works by Shostakovich and Beethoven.

Program:
Dmitri Shostakovich
String Quartet No. 7 in F-sharp Minor, Op. 108

Ludwig van Beethoven
String Quartet No. 3 in D Major, Op. 18, No. 3

Alexander Glazunov
String Quintet in A Major, Op. 39

All seats are general admission. Tickets are $25 for adults, $20 for seniors and free for under 18 and students with ID.

Pianist YunJung Park will perform with the Spokane String Quartet at its next concert Sunday, Nov. 10, at The Fox Theater.

The concert, which features music by Haydn, Brahms and Schumann, begins at 3 p.m. Click here to buy tickets.

YunJung Park opens the concert with Haydn’s Sonata in C Major No. 48 for solo piano, composed towards the end of Haydn’s nearly 30 years of service to the Esterhazy family as Court Composer and Conductor. Under Prince Nikolaus’ patronage, Haydn received an income, commissions, and musical resources (such as the Court Orchestra and Choir) to nurture his creativity. Besides performing at Esterhazy country estates, Haydn visited Vienna with the Prince’s retinue, where he became Mozart’s friend based on mutual esteem and supportive explorations of music. The opening andante of Sonata No. 48 highlights a defining musical characteristic of Haydn, in which larger structures are built from transformations of a simple melodic idea. 

The concert continues with Park and Mateusz Wolski performing Brahms’ Sonata for Violin and Piano, Op. 108. Brahms wrote this Sonata at the peak of his creative powers. He had achieved international recognition with his large-scale symphonies and concertos. Having successfully emerged from the long shadow of Beethoven’s legacy, Brahms decided to focus his last years composing songs, and chamber music. Opus 108 is Brahms’ third and final Sonata for Violin and Piano, elegantly balancing the lyrical nature of the violin with the powerful chordal harmony of the piano. 

The concert concludes with Robert Schumann’s Piano Quartet, Opus 47, the last work of a six-month creative outpouring that produced his finest chamber music. He prepared for this surge by studying Bach’s counterpoint (the art of combining many melodies simultaneously) with his beloved wife Clara. They also studied the string quartets of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. Opus 47 represents an homage combining Schumann’s Romantic spirit with the techniques pioneered by these earlier masters.

All seats are general admission and are available at foxtheaterspokane.com or at the door. Tickets are $25 for adults, $20 for seniors and free for persons under 18 and students with ID.

Pianist YunJung Park will perform with the Spokane String Quartet at its next concert Sunday, Nov. 10, at The Fox Theater.

The concert, which features music by Haydn, Brahms and Schumann, begins at 3 p.m. Click here to buy tickets.

Yun has extensive experience in performance as a solo pianist, chamber musician and church musician, as well as in teaching and in research. She served on the piano faculty at Kyungpook National University and also worked as a research assistant at Seoul National University in South Korea. Yun has performed in numerous solo piano recitals and chamber music concerts in Frankfurt, Aachen, Kӧln, Düsseldorf (Germany), Maastricht (the Netherlands), Salzburg (Austria), Seoul and Daegu (South Korea) and in the Philadelphia, Baltimore and Spokane areas in the United States.

While serving as the music director at Swarthmore United Methodist Church, she frequently collaborated with professional local musicians. In 2020, upon relocating to Spokane, Yun performed multiple solo recitals and chamber concerts at Steinway Gallery in Spokane, Gonzaga University and St. John’s Cathedral. She has often been invited to perform live on KPBX radio. 

The Spokane String Quartet opens its 2024-25 season Sunday, Oct. 13, with a concert featuring music by Beethoven, Dvořák and Chickasaw classical composer Jerod Tate. The concert begins at 3 p.m. at The Fox Theater.

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Season tickets as well as tickets for individual concerts are now on sale for the Spokane String Quartet’s 2024-25 concert season. Links to the secure purchase sites are on our Concerts page, https://www.spokanestringquartet.org/concerts/.

All seats are general admission. Tickets for individual concerts are $25 for adults, $20 for seniors and free for persons under 18 and students with ID. Season tickets, which give you five concerts for the price of four, are $100 for adults and $80 for seniors.

The new season opens at 3 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 13, at The Fox Theater with a concert featuring works by Ludwig van Beethoven, Chickasaw classical composer Jerod Tate and Antonín Dvořák.

The season continues at 3 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 10, at The F0x Theater with the SSQ and guest artist YunJung Park, piano. The program includes works by Franz Joseph Haydn, Johannes Brahms and Robert Schumann.

After a break for the holidays, the Quartet welcomes 2025 with a concert at 3 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 9, at The Fox Theater featuring guest artist Michal Palzewicz, cello. The program includes works by Dmitri Shostakovich, Ludwig van Beethoven and Alexander Glazunov.

Next up at 3 p.m. Sunday, March 16, at the Bing Crosby Theater is a concert featuring works by Polina Nazaykinskaya, Franz Joseph Haydn and Samuel Barber.

The season closes at 3 p.m. Sunday, May 18, at the Bing Crosby Theater with the SSQ and guest artist Clinton Webb, horn. The concert features works by Caroline Shaw, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Johannes Brahms.

Dates have been announced for the Spokane String Quartet’s 2024-25 subscription season at the Fox Theater and the Bing Crosby Theater. Look for your season brochure in the mail in early August. Season tickets are also available to order online at spokanestringquartet.square.site.

The season opens Sunday, Oct. 13, at the Fox Theater with works by Beethoven, Jerrod Tate and Dvorak. This will be followed Sunday, Nov. 10, at the Fox with pianist YunJung Park performing works by Haydn, Brahms and Schumann.

The calendar rolls over to 2025 with a Sunday, Feb. 9, concert at the Fox featuring cellist Michal Palzewicz. He is scheduled to perform String Quintet in A Major by Alexander Glazunov.

The season concludes with two concerts at the Bing Crosby Theater. On Sunday, March 16, the Quartet will present works by Nazaykinskaya, Haydn and Barber. On Sunday, May 18, Spokane Symphony hornist Clinton Webb joins the SSQ in a concert featuring works by Caroline Shaw, Mozart and Brahms.

All concerts begin at 3 p.m. All seats are general admission. Ticket prices are $25 for adults, $20 for seniors and free for persons under 18 and students with ID.

The Spokane String Quartet concludes its 2023-24 season Sunday, May 19, with a concert featuring music by Joseph Haydn, Benjamin Britten and Edward Elgar. The concert begins at 3 p.m. at The Bing Crosby Theater.

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The concert opens with Haydn’s String Quartet in C Major, Op. 20, No. 2, and Britten’s 3 Divertimenti for String Quartet (1933). After the intermission the concert concludes with Elgar’s String Quartet in E Minor, Op. 83.

Other composers wrote earlier string quartets, but Joseph Haydn is regarded as the “father of the string quartet” based on structural and textural changes pioneered in his six quartets of Opus 20. No longer were string quartets considered light entertainment where the first violin was predominant and the remaining quartet members played subordinate accompaniment. Opus 20, No. 2 highlights that change from the very first measure as the cello introduces the melody, accompanied by the viola and second violin. Thus, the string quartet became a more democratic conversation between four equal voices able to convey deep musical thought and emotions with four-part harmony and counterpoint.

Edward Elgar composed “patriotic” works at the beginning of World War I followed by creative withdrawal as the war’s incomprehensible destruction unfolded. At age 61, he and Lady Elgar moved back to the Sussex countryside where Elgar regained creative strength from nature, though on quiet days they could hear cannon fire from France during the war’s conclusion. The E Minor String Quartet is one of three chamber masterpieces composed at this time, along with working on his beloved Cello Concerto. Lady Elgar described the second movement as “captured sunshine,” yet this work is no pastoral idyll as Elgar powerfully and introspectively faces a changed world.

Benjamin Britten, at age 20 in 1933, composed a suite of three musical portraits of Britten’s school friends, which was extensively revised into the 3 Divertimenti for String Quartet (1936). Unlike Elgar’s Late Romantic Style, one can hear the modern influences of Stravinsky and Bartok in Britten’s delightful composition. 

All seats are general admission and are available through TicketsWest or at the door. Tickets are $25 for adults, $20 for seniors and free for persons under 18 and students with ID.

Franz Schubert’s masterwork “Death and Maiden” highlights the Spokane String Quartet’s upcoming concert at 3 p.m. Sunday, March 24, at the Bing Crosby Theater. The piece replaces Erich Korngold’s String Quartet No. 2 on the previously announced program.

The John Adams piece “Fellow Traveler” opens the program, which features a guest performance by former SSQ cellist John Marshall, who plays principal cello for the Spokane Symphony.

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Sarah Bass, viola player for the Spokane Symphony, joins the group for Mozart’s String Quintet No. 4 in G Minor.

John Adams’ Fellow Traveler was composed for theater director Peter Sellars’ 50th birthday, celebrating their decades-long friendship and collaboration on all of Adams’ operas, beginning in 1985 with Nixon in China. Sellars was initially attracted to Adams’ music with its dramatic “sweep of tension and release, and then adrenaline-inspired visionary states. That is absolutely what you hope for in the theater.” Fellow Traveler captures that vibrant energy in a short, rhythmic sprint using pulsing themes from Nixon in China.

Mozart often played the viola in his own string quartet concerts, highlighting his fondness for the viola. Additionally, he wrote six string quintets which all include a second viola joining the standard string quartet, giving added warmth and texture to the inner voices of the ensemble. String Quintets No. 3 (in C Major) and 4 (in G minor) are contrasting (sunny vs. darker) large-scale masterworks composed consecutively in 1787 during the summit of Mozart’s creative powers. Quintet No. 4 was composed when Mozart’s father was dying. Tchaikovsky wrote about the third movement, “No one else has ever known how to interpret so beautifully in music the feeling of resignation and inconsolable sorrow.”  

Like Mozart, Franz Schubert was a brilliant, prolific composer whose life was cut short in his 30s. When facing incurable disease, Schubert transformed his despair into composing powerful masterpieces, including String Quartet No. 14 Death and the Maiden. The emotional breadth, bold symphonic scale, forceful urgency, and imaginative variations in this quartet all contribute to its reputation as being among the finest ever written. 

All seats for the concert are general admission and are available through ticketswest.com or at the door. Tickets are $25 for adults, $20 for seniors, or free for persons under 18 and students with ID.

The Spokane String Quartet returns to the Bing Crosby Theater stage at 3 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 28, with music by Beethoven, pioneering Black woman composer Florence Price and Felix Mendelssohn. 

Joining the SSQ for the concert is guest John Michel, cello professor at Central Washington University and founding member of the Kairos, formerly known as the Kairos String Quartet, the resident ensemble at CWU.

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In the first decade after Beethoven arrived in Vienna, he assimilated and mastered the  classical string quartet form developed by Haydn and brought to heights of perfection with  Haydn and Mozart. Opus 18 contains Beethoven’s first 6 string quartets and represents the  “Classical Phase” of his quartet writing genius. Even at this early stage, Beethoven was  exploring new directions highlighted by the sharply contrasting emotional moods and  tempos in the finale of Quartet No. 6, where slow depictions of “Melancholy” alternate with  variations of a faster joyful dance. 

Florence Price (1887-1953) stated that she had two handicaps in having her music  recognized: “those of sex and race.”She overcame those obstacles, becoming the first  Black woman composer to have her work (Symphony No. 1) performed by a major  orchestra, the Chicago Symphony in 1933. Price infused the classical tradition with  elements inspired by African American spirituals and folk music, featured in the second  movement of String Quartet No. 1. 

Felix Mendelssohn’s deeply beloved sister Fanny was also a talented composer and  pianist, and trusted critic of his compositions. Felix was devastated by her unexpected  death at age 41 by stroke, and he expressed his grief musically with String Quartet No. 6, a  Requiem for Fanny. The outer movements of agitation enclose a tender core “song without  words” in the third movement. This powerful masterpiece was his last completed major  work. His death at age 38 came six months after Fanny’s, also by stroke.

All seats are general admission. Tickets are $25 for adults, $20 for seniors and free for persons under 18 and students with ID. Tickets are available at the door, or click here to purchase tickets online.

Black History Month gets off to an early start Sunday, Jan. 28, with the Spokane String Quartet’s concert featuring pioneering Black woman composer Florence Price.

The concert begins at 3 p.m. at The Bing Crosby Theater. Click here to purchase tickets.

Florence Price (1887-1953) was born in Arkansas and educated at the New England Conservatory of Music. She was a classical composer, pianist, organist and music teacher. She was the first African-American woman to be recognized as a symphonic composer, and the first to have a composition played by a major orchestra. She composed over 300 works: four symphonies, four concertos, and a number of choral works, art songs, chamber music and music for solo instruments.

The Jan. 28 program includes Price’s String Quartet No. 1 in G Major. Also on the program are Beethoven’s String Quartet in B-flat major, Op. 18, No. 6, and Mendelssohn’s String Quartet in F Minor, Op. 80.