Academy Concert Hall, HK Academy for Performing Arts Mar 21, 23, 25, 8pm
The Chilingirian Quartet from Britain will be giving three concerts at the Academy for Performing Arts next week featuring works that were once rarely performed in public. Invited by the academy's dean of music, Benedict Cruft, the quartet consists of co-founders violinist Levon Chilingirian (left) and cellist Philip De Groote (far right) as well as violist Susie Meszaros, who joined in 2003, and violinist Ronald Birks, who came on board in 2009.
'It's great to have a well-established, respected and experienced quartet performing in Hong Kong. It's rare that quartets stay together and work together for a long time - inevitably there's a change of personnel as they go,' says Cruft, a professional violinist.
The Chilingirian Quartet went international after making their New York debut in 1976 and have performed at venues including Brucknerhaus in Austria, Stockholm Konserthuset in Sweden and the Konzerthaus Berlin in Germany. In 1988, the ensemble became the first quartet-in-residence at London's Royal College of Music, where they continue to offer master classes to young musicians.
The forthcoming concerts will feature a different programme each night. The three programmes include works by Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn, Bartok and Ravel.
Cruft says 'a lot of string quartets, particularly the earlier ones, were not written for public performance'. Hence, he says, the relatively intimate setting of the Academy Concert Hall - which allows the audience to 'hear everything that's going on' - is more appropriate for quartet performances than big concert halls.