Due to circumstances beyond our control, there will be no public masterclasses with the Borodin Quartet.

For further information, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

NEWS RELEASE 10/7/2017

THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING!
BOISE CHAMBER MUSIC SERIES HOSTS THE BORODIN QUARTET

Friday, Oct. 20 at 7:30, The Borodin String Quartet will perform an all-Russian program for the second concert of the 2017-18 Boise Chamber Music Series. The Borodin Quartet was formed in 1945 by four students from the Moscow Conservatory, and remains one of very few existing established chamber ensembles with uninterrupted longevity. The world has changed beyond recognition since 1945; the Borodin Quartet, meanwhile, has retained its commitment to tonal beauty, technical excellence and penetrating musicianship. The ensemble’s cohesion and vision have survived successive changes in personnel, thanks not least to the common legacy shared by its members from their training at the Moscow Conservatory. The current members of the Quartet, Ruben Aharonian, Sergei Lomovsky, Igor Naidin and Vladimir Balshin, will perform an all-Russian program of works by Nikolai Myaskovsky, Dmitri Shostakovich, and Piotr Tchaikovsky.

Deep connections exist between the Borodin Quartet and the composers featured on this program. The original members, just two generations ago, were the Moscow Conservatory faculty quartet during the time of both Myaskovsky and Shostakovich’s residence there. Igor Naidin, who joined as viola player after Dmitri Shebalin [the first Borodin violist] retired, says: “Shostakovich watched over the Borodin Quartet’s development through its first generations. You could say he gave his blessing to the quartet’s playing of his music. Of course, the members who played his quartets to him before they were heard in public remembered all his remarks about interpretation, and the way of playing that met with his approval.”

Lesser-known Myaskovsky was both teacher and colleague to Shostakovich and a former pupil of Rimsky-Korsakov. His final string quartet, No. 13, was written in 1949, just seven years before Shostakovich’s Sixth Quartet. Both are featured on this program, bridging the gap between lush 19th-century Russian Romanticism and the acerbic realities of the Soviet era. The program concludes with the quartet known as the first masterwork of Russian chamber music, Tchaikovsky’s String Quartet No. 1 in D Major, Op. 11, of 1871—the work that “made Tolstoy weep.”

For single tickets at $30 ($25 seniors and students) to the Friday, Oct. 20 concert, in the Velma V. Morrison Recital Hall, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

The Borodin Quartet will coach two Boise State student string quartets at 4:30 on Thursday, Oct. 19, in the Morrison Center on campus, rooms C217 and B213.

The events of the Boise Chamber Music Series are sponsored by the Boise Chamber Music Society and the Boise State Dept. of Music. Special thanks to our group season sponsors, Hotel 43 and The Grove Hotel. For further information: Jeanne Belfy, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

You asked for them to return as soon as possible, and after they endured two dates in Boise Novembers, we’re happy to welcome the Horszowskis to Idaho springtime. Hailed by The New Yorker as “destined for great things,” when the members of the Horszowski Trio–Jesse Mills, Raman Ramakrishnan, and Rieko Aizawa–played together for the first time, they immediately felt the spark of a unique connection. Many years of close friendship had created a deep trust between the players, which in turn led to exhilarating expressive freedom.

Two-time Grammy-nominated violinist Jesse Mills first performed with Raman Ramakrishnan, founding cellist of the prize-winning Daedalus Quartet, at the Kinhaven Music School when they were children. In New York City, they met pianist Rieko Aizawa, who, upon being discovered by the late violinist and conductor Alexander Schneider, had made her U.S. debuts at the Kennedy Center and Carnegie Hall. Their musical bonds were strengthened at various schools and festivals around the world, including the Juilliard School and the Marlboro Festival. Ms. Aizawa was the last pupil of the legendary pianist, Mieczysław Horszowski (1892-1993), at the Curtis Institute.

The Trio will conclude our season with American Arthur Foote’s 1909 Trio No. 2, Elliott Carter’s final composition Epigrams (2012), and Brahms’ great C major Trio, op. 87.

Winner of the prestigious CMA Cleveland Quartet Award, Philadelphia's Jasper String Quartet is the Professional Quartet in Residence at Temple University's Center for Gifted Young Musicians and the 2017-18 Guest Artist in Residence at Swarthmore College. The Jaspers have been hailed as “sonically delightful and expressively compelling” (The Strad) and "powerful" (New York Times). "The Jaspers... match their sounds perfectly, as if each swelling chord were coming out of a single, impossibly well-tuned organ, instead of four distinct instruments." (New Haven Advocate)