Museum of Art to present Pacifica Quartet for 'Concerts in the Galleries' series Sunday
Mar. 16—GRAND FORKS — The Pacifica Quartet, a multiple Grammy-winning chamber ensemble, will perform in concert at 2 p.m. Sunday, March 17, at the North Dakota Museum of Art on the UND campus.
The event is the latest in the museum's "Myra Foundation Presents: Concerts in the Galleries" series. It marks the group's second visit to the museum.
The program will include "Four Diversions for String Quartet," by Gruenberg; "String Quartet No. 2 in A major," by Shostakovich; and "String Quartet in F major (American)," by Dvorak.
Quartet members are: Austin Hartman, violin; Mark Holloway, viola; Simin Ganatra, violin; and Brandon Vamos, cello.
The quartet has achieved recognition as one of the finest chamber ensembles performing today in the United States and internationally, according to Jennifer Tarlin, chamber music director for the museum.
With a career spanning nearly three decades, the ensemble is known for its virtuosity, exuberant performance style and often daring repertory choices, Tarlin said. With its powerful energy and captivating, cohesive sound, the Pacifica has established itself as the embodiment of the senior American quartet sound.
Formed in 1994, the quartet quickly won chamber music's top competitions, including the 1998 Naumburg Chamber Music Award, and four years later the Chamber Music America's Cleveland Quartet Award. The group was appointed to Lincoln Center's The Bowers Program and, in 2006, was awarded the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant.
Having served as quartet-in-residence at Indiana University's Jacobs School of Music for the past decade, the quartet also leads the Center for Advanced Quartet Studies at the Aspen Music Festival and School, and was the quartet-in-residence at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
In 2021, the Pacifica Quartet received a second Grammy Award for Contemporary Voices, an exploration of music by three Pulitzer Prize-winning composers: Shulamit Ran, Jennifer Higdon and Ellen Taaffe. Most recently, the quartet was nominated for another Grammy Award for their recording "American Stories" with Anthony McGill.
Tickets are available online at
or at the door. Tickets are $30 for museum members; $35 for non-members; and $10 for students and military. Children ages 11 and younger will be admitted at no charge. Members of school bands and orchestras are admitted free if an advance ticket is requested at
.
During their visit here, the quartet members will perform a young audience concert for students Monday, March 18, at the Fisher (Minnesota) Public School, as part of the museum's educational program, "Music in the Schools," funded by a grant from the Community Foundation, Tarlin said.
Visiting artists have performed for students in several local schools, Grand Forks Air Force Base and Northwood (North Dakota) Public School as well as the Grand Forks Public Library, and have been "extremely well received," she said. All the music programs in the schools are provided at no charge, "and we've been getting more requests than we can fill."
For more information, call the museum at (701) 777-4195.
