Cuarteto Casals , with Andreas Klein, Guest Pianist

Overview

Founded in Madrid in 1997, Cuarteto Casals has quickly become recognized as one of Europe's most distinguished string quartets, garnering extensive critical acclaim and winning top prizes - including a First at the 2000 London and at the 2002 Johannes Brahms International String Quartet Competitions, and in 2006 The National Music Award in Spain.

Andreas Klein, a captivating piano soloist, has established himself as a compelling performer with a wide range and brilliant technique.

Tickets:  $39, $36, students $20 - $15 at door

Related Sites

• Quarteto Casals web site
• Andreas Klein web site

Program

• Boccherini:        Opus 32/5
• Ligeti:               String Quartet No.1 Metamorphoses Nocturnes
• Schumann:        Piano Quintet, Opus 44

About the Artists

The Cuarteto Casals

Since its founding at the Escuela Reina Sofia in Madrid under Professor Antonello Farulli in 1997, Cuarteto Casals has quickly become recognized as one of Europe's most distinguished string quartets. This Spanish ensemble has garnered extensive critical acclaim and has won top prizes at many international competitions, including First Prizes at the 2000 London and the 2002 Johannes Brahms International String Quartet Competitions. In 2005, the ensemble was honoured with the prize of the City of Barcelona, in 2006 received the National Music Award - the highest distinction for musicians in Spain, and in 2008 was chosen for the prestigious Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award in England.

Upcoming and recent activities include performances at the Wigmore Hall and Barbican Center (London), Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall (New York), Philharmonie and Konzerthaus (Berlin), Library of Congress (Washington), Konzerthaus and Musikverein (Wien), Philharmonie (Cologne), Chatelet and Cité de la Musique (Paris) and tours throughout Europe, the United States, South America, Russia and Japan, as well as appearances at the Salzburger Festspiele and Lucerne, White Nights, Santa Fe, Bantry, City of London, Schleswig-Holstein, and Kuhmo festivals. The Cuarteto Casals residency at the Auditori in Barcelona, where it now performs an annual series of concerts, has been met with tremendous critical approbation and audience support. In addition, the quartet has accompanied the King and Queen of Spain on official state visits, performing for the Grand Duke of Luxembourg as well as at the Palacio Real in Madrid, on the Royal Family’s priceless collection of matched Stradivarius instruments.

Cuarteto Casals records exclusively for Harmonia Mundi, which recently released its sixth album, featuring the complete string quartets Opus 33 of Joseph Haydn. In 2008, they released an album featuring the quartets and piano quintet of Johannes Brahms, preceded by ‘Influencías’ in 2007, juxtaposing the quartet of Maurice Ravel with those of his Spanish contemporaries Joaquin Turnia and Eduard Toldrá. After the ensemble was widely praised for its debut recording of the three quartets of J.C. Arriaga the quartet recorded a three-disc set of the complete early quartets and divertimenti of W.A. Mozart, as well as a pairing of the lone quartet of Claude Debussy with the Second Quartet of Alexander Zemlinsky.

 The quartet has worked with important composers in Europe today, premiering works by Jordi Cervelló, David del Puerto and Jesús Rueda of Spain, collaborating with James MacMillan of Scotland, and György Kurtág of Hungary, and at the composer's request, recording Christian Lauba's quartet 'Morphing'. Cuarteto Casals has performed quintets with renowned musicians including Elizabeth Leonskaja, Oleg Maisenberg, Claudio Martinez Mehner, Christophe Coin, Thomas Riebl, and Michael Collins and has been heard frequently on the radio and in live concert broadcasts from the Spanish National Radio, Radio France, Deutschland Radio, WDR, NDR, SWR, RAI, NPR and the BBC and seen on television throughout Spain and Germany.

Cuarteto Casals is currently in residence at the leading conservatory in Barcelona, and has been profoundly influenced by intensive studies with Professors Walter Levin and Rainer Schmidt, as well as by graduate work in Cologne under the Alban Berg Quartet and Harald Schoneweg.

Andreas Klein

Andreas Klein's career as soloist has taken him to the world's most prestigious venues: London's Wigmore Hall, Berlin's Philharmonic Hall, New York's Carnegie Hall and Alice Tully Hall, the Kennedy Center in Washington DC, and to Berlin, Rome, Milan, Bern, Leipzig and Dresden. He has toured Europe, the Middle East and the US, appearing on major concert series in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington DC, Cleveland, Houston and Seattle to name a view. The Tagesspiegel wrote of his concert with the Berlin Philharmoniker playing Mozart's Concerto KV459, "Humorous flamboyancy and impeccable technique, grace, melodious sound and plenty of brilliance."

He has appeared with the Berlin Symphony and Radio Orchestras, the Stuttgart Radio Symphony, Halle Orchestra and Carl Philip Emanuel Bach Chamber Orchestra in Frankfurt. "Virtuous, but not booming, shining and playful with a singing tone and elegant declamation, the musical melodies of this beautiful concerto evolved." The late Beethoven Sonata Recital in Dresden was broadcast nationwide by MDR Radio.

In the US, Andreas Klein was the soloist with the Salzburg Chamber Soloists with Mozart Concerti for 20 performances including Mexico City in El Centro Historico and the Sala Nezahuolkoyotl, California's Stanford University, Krannert Center, Palm Beach, Boston, and at the Newman Center in Denver the concert was filmed. In an earlier season he toured with the Lucerne Festival Strings appearing at the Kimmel Center, Philadelphia, Kennedy Center in DC, Spivey Hall, Atlanta, Wortham Center in Houston, and Mechanics Hall near Boston. Other appearances during the last seasons included the Oregon Mozart Players, the Virginia, Knoxville, Evansville, Green Bay, Springfield, Missouri, Santa Fe, West Virginia, Key West, the Atlantic Classical and Valdosta Symphonies.

During the 2008/09 season he toured with the Salzburg Chamber Soloists for the second time, performing Beethoven's own version for string orchestra of the 4th piano concerto in San Diego, Salt Lake City and Thomasville. "Klein's interpretative skills, his musicality and technical acumen allowed for a very musical reading, that was complemented by the ensemble" - Desert News, Salt Lake City

He performed the same concerto with the Deutsche Kammerakademie Neuss in Germany - "...gripping and impressive was his huge dynamic range; his control to produce a flawless shading down to a barely audible sound was breathtaking" - Grevenbroicher Zeitung. For the season finale with the Greenwich Symphony he gave two brilliant renditions of the Liszt Concerto No.1 - "Klein voiced this melodic writing with a sound both tender and confident" - Greenwich Times. "A world caliber performance. Andreas Klein executed this piece with its octaves, trills, glissandi and scampering passages without turning a hair, his long fingers simply moving about the keyboard like a magician's" - Greenwich Citizen. He appeared in recital in Cleveland and Houston's Hobby Center.

Andreas Klein was heard frequently on National Public Radio's "Performance Today" and recently on American Public Radio's "St. Paul Sunday", a live video broadcast on WGBH Boston and KUHF Houston. PBS aired "Intermezzo with Andreas Klein".

Of his CD releases, Dancing Through Time was featured in a two-hour special edition of "The Piano Bench" on KUHF Radio, Houston. Of Beethoven and Berg, the New York Times raved, "Mr. Klein is an excellent pianist. In Berg's Sonata the voluptuous haze was blown away: one followed the progress of every theme and motive as they steadily transformed themselves into a single architectural design." For the Archives of The Deutschland Sender and DS Kultur Radio in Berlin he recorded seldom performed works by Busoni, Ginastera and Stravinsky. A "Musician's Portrait" was filmed for ORB TV in Berlin.

Andreas Klein's CD recordings are available through the Albums page of this website, from Eroica.com, and internet sites such as CD Baby and Amazon.com.

He is a graduate of the Juilliard School and complemented his studies with the legendary Claudio Aarrau and Nikita Magaloff. Copies of his Dissertation on the Chopin Etudes are in the libraries of the Chopin Society in Vienna and Leipzig.

2009 - please destroy all previous versions