American Quartet

The PUBLIQuartet is dedicated to the performance of contemporary chamber music, including new works and interpretations of classics.

Loss of hearing forced Smetana to leave his position at the Provincial Theatre and withdraw from social life and his musical career. In 1876 he moved to his daughter Zofie's house in Jabkenice. Here he was able to enjoy the calm and quite needed so that he could focus on his compositions. The change in his circumstances made him reflect on his life and he captured his feelings in his String Quartet No. 1 in E-minor, "From My Life". Smetana described the work as “intimate and private music for four instruments talking about my life”. However, the opposite was true of this epic score of programme music. Until this time the techniques used by Smetana in this quartet had only been used by composers writing for symphony orchestra. He used symphonic techniques with brilliant effect for chamber music.

In 2023-2024, the Formosa Quartet will be recording four of George Frederick McKay’s reflective, playful, and intricate string quartets with Seattle’s GRAMMY award-winning music director and principal conductor of the Northwest Sinfonia, David Sabee, as producer.

Acacia Quartet presents a program of quartets by Mozart, Dvorak, and Australian composer Alice Chance. This CD presents a notable piece from each of the composers, encompassing 12 tracks played with the brilliance Acacia Quartet is known for. Enjoyable on every level.

The ‘Stradivari Quartett in Concert’ series presents this second volume – Songs of Yearning – a live recording captured during the ensemble’s Klangwelle concert in Zurich. The album features three remarkable works: Dvořák’s radiant ‘American’ Quartet, five lyrical selections from his Cypresses, and the world premiere recording of Swiss composer David Philip Hefti’s String Quartet No. 8 – a work expressly commissioned for the ensemble and designed to be performed interspersed with the Cypresses, as heard in this recording. Founded in 2007, Stradivari Quartett has earned global acclaim for its sophisticated musicianship and profound interpretations that affirm the quartet’s standing among today’s foremost ensembles.

The Juilliard String Quartet was founded in 1946 by William Schuman, who was the president of the Juilliard School in New York. The original members of the quartet were violinists Robert Mann and Robert Koff, violist Raphael Hillyer, and cellist Arthur Winograd. The members of the quartet have changed a number of times over the course of the ensemble's career, but after more than fifty years of performances and recordings, the Juilliard Quartet has remained one of the most famous and well-respected string quartets in the world.