Winter 2014 Concert

Ariel Quartet
Zion’s Muse: Three Generations of Israeli Composers

  • Terrace Theater
  • The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
  • Washington, D.C.
  • December 14th, 2014

Musicians

Ariel Quartet
Gershon Gerchikov, violin
Alexandra Kazovsky, violin
Jan Grüning, viola
Amit Even-Tov, cello

Concert Summary

Israel is less than 70 years old and yet it has produced three generations of visionary composers. In this 2014 Hanukkah-timed concert, Pro Musica Hebraica presented the young Israeli virtuosos of Ariel Quartet to trace the arc of modern Israeli music. The award-winning ensemble performed two early classics by the founding father of Israeli classical music, German-born composer Paul Ben-Haim, together with a passionate late 1960s quartet composed by the middle generation master Mark Kopytman on the eve of his departure for Israel, and a moving spiritual meditation by contemporary composer Menachem Wiesenberg.

Performance Timing: Part One – 40 min.; Intermission – 15 min.; Part Two – 38 min.

Concert Program

BEN-HAIM: Prelude for string quartet –based on a traditional Sephardic tune (1973)
BEN-HAIM: String Quartet No. 1 (1937)
KOPYTMAN: String Quartet No. 3 (1969)
WIESENBERG: Between the Sacred and the Profane (1998)

“Exceptional boldness and confidence—a blazing, larger-than-life performance that seemed to celebrate the triumph of the human spirit, even from the depths of chaos.”—The Washington Post, on Ariel Quartet