The Penderecki String Quartet is a

string quartet The term string quartet can refer to either a type of musical composition or a group of four people who play them. Many composers from the mid-18th century onwards wrote string quartets. The associated musical ensemble consists of two violinist ...

, founded in 1986, now based in

Waterloo, Ontario Waterloo is a city in the Canadian province of Ontario. It is one of three cities in the Regional Municipality of Waterloo (formerly Waterloo County). Waterloo is situated about west-southwest of Toronto. Due to the close proximity of the c ...

, Canada.

History

The original members of the string quartet started in Poland as the New Szymanowski Quartet. In 1986 they won the Penderecki Prize at the National Chamber Music Competition in

Łódź Łódź, also rendered in English as Lodz, is a city in central Poland and a former industrial centre. It is the capital of Łódź Voivodeship, and is located approximately south-west of Warsaw. The city's coat of arms is an example of cant ...

, Poland. They performed Penderecki's Quartet No.2, and the composer invited the quartet to take his name. The PSQ have been Quartet-in-Residence at Canada's

Wilfrid Laurier University Wilfrid Laurier University (commonly referred to as WLU or simply Laurier) is a public university in Ontario, Canada, with campuses in Waterloo, Brantford and Milton. The newer Brantford and Milton campuses are not considered satellite campus ...

since 1991. Current members are from Poland, Canada, and the USA. Previously they were affiliated with the University of Wisconsin (1988-91). The quartet's annual Quartetfest at Laurier is an intensive study seminar and concert series. The quartet's recording of Marjan Mozetich’s ''Lament in the Trampled Garden'' won the Juno Awards of 2010 Classical Composition of the Year. The Penderecki String Quartet is a champion of contemporary music and has premiered or commissioned over 100 new works from composers in Canada and abroad. Selected composers include

Andrew Ager Andrew Ager (born 12 February 1962) is a Canadian composer of symphonies, operas, chamber, and solo music. He lives in Ottawa, where he composes full-time. Early life Andrew Ager was born to a musical family. His maternal grandfather, Charles A ...

; Carmen Braden; Glenn Buhr; Ka Nin Chan;

Brian Cherney Brian Cherney (born 1942) is a Canadian composer currently residing in Montreal, Quebec. Cherney was born in Peterborough, Ontario. He studied at the University of Toronto where he was a pupil of John Weinzweig, Samuel Dolin, and John Be ...

; Omar Daniel; Srđan Dedić;

John Estacio John Estacio (born April 8, 1966) is a contemporary Canadian composer of opera, orchestral and choral music. __TOC__ Life and career Estacio was born in Newmarket, Ontario. Raised in the farming community of the Holland Marsh, Ontario, Estacio t ...

; Anthony Genge; Jarosław Gołembiowski; Peter Hatch;

Christos Hatzis Christos Hatzis ( el, Χρήστος Χατζής; born 1953) is a Juno Award-winning Greek-Canadian composer. Many of his compositions are performed internationally, and he is a professor at the Faculty of Music, University of Toronto. Early l ...

; Daniel Janke; Veronika Krausas; Alice Ho; Matthew Malsky; David L. McIntyre; Piotr Grella-Możejko; Kelly-Marie Murphy; Norbert Palej; Laurie Radford;

Jeffrey Ryan Jeffrey Ryan (born 1962) is a Canadian composer based in Vancouver, British Columbia. His compositional style ranges from opera, art song, and choral music to chamber ensemble and orchestral works. Ryan has been commissioned by the Cleveland Orc ...

;

J. Mark Scearce J. Mark Scearce (born October 9, 1960) is an American composer known for his musical settings of more than 200 texts by forty poets—from art songs to operas to works for chorus and orchestra. Early life J. Mark Scearce was born in Edina, Mis ...

; David Scott;

Linda Catlin Smith Linda Catlin Smith (born 1957 in New York City) is a Canadian composer based out of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. In 2005 she became the second woman to win the Jules Léger Prize for New Chamber Music. Smith studied composition and theory with Alle ...

; Jesse Stewart; Kotoka Suzuki; and Marek Żebrowski. In October 2013, the PSQ worked with Maestro Krzysztof Penderecki on his Third Quartet (2008) and performed it at Symphony Space in New York City on the occasion of his 80th birthday. The Penderecki String Quartet was the first Canadian quartet to have recorded the complete

Béla Bartók Béla Viktor János Bartók (; ; 25 March 1881 – 26 September 1945) was a Hungarian composer, pianist, and ethnomusicologist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century; he and Franz Liszt are regarded as Hun ...

string quartet cycle. In 2015 Polish composer Marek Żebrowski wrote "Fire" ("Pożar") for the quartet, which

David Lynch David Keith Lynch (born January 20, 1946) is an American filmmaker, visual artist and actor. A recipient of an Academy Honorary Award in 2019, Lynch has received three Academy Award nominations for Best Director, and the César Award for Be ...

used for his animated short of the same name. The Penderecki String Quartet has performed world-wide, including appearances in New York (Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall), Amsterdam (Concertgebouw), Hong Kong (Academy for the Arts), Los Angeles (REDCAT Hall at Disney Center), St. Petersburg (Sheremetev Palace), the Adam Festival in New Zealand, and throughout Europe in Rome, Madrid, Paris, Belgrade, Prague, Kraków, Vilnius, and Zagreb. The PSQ has also toured extensively in Mexico, Venezuela and Brazil and from coast to coast in Canada.

Current members

*Jeremy Bell, violin, 1999- *Jerzy Kapłanek , violin, 1987- *Christine Vlajk, viola, 1997- *Katie Schlaikjer, cello, 2013-

Past members

*Piotr Buczek, violin, 1987-1999 *Mariusz Smolij, violin, 1986-1987 *Yariv Aloni, viola, 1991-1995 *Adam Smyła, viola, 1986-1991 *Dov Scheindlin, viola, 1995-1997 *Zbigniew Szołtysek, cello, 1986-1990 *Paul Pulford, cello, 1990-2003 *Simon Fryer, cello, 2003-2009 *Jacob Braun, cello, 2009-2013

Awards and recognition

* Penderecki Prize at the National Chamber Music Competition in Łódz, Poland, in 1986 * Juno Awards 2010 Classical Composition of the Year for their performance of Marjan Mozetich’s ''Lament in the Trampled Garden''

Selected discography

: Complete String Quartets (Eclectra, 2005) * Launch Pad: new Canadian quartets commissioned by the Penderecki String Quartet; Radford, Ho, Grella-Możejko, Janke, Ryan (Centrediscs, 2008) * Marjan Mozetich: Lament in the Trampled Garden (Toronto: Centrediscs, 2009) Juno Awards of 2010 Classical Composition of the Year * Beethoven: String Quartets Nos. 15 & 16 (Marquis Music, 2014) * De Profundis, Quartets by Norbert Palej (world premiere) and Krzysztof Penderecki (Marquis Music, 2016)

References

Selected concert reviews

Penderecki’s past is prologue for a night of chamber music at Symphony Space
by George Grella, ''New York Classical Review'', 27 October 2013.

by Timothy Mangan, ''Los Angeles Times'', 19 March 1998.

External links

* * {{YouTube, id=BXTLsQBJSVc, title=FIRE (POZAR)

Penderecki String Quartet

String quartets Polish musical groups Musical groups established in 1986