Now entering its 25th season, the Jerusalem Quartet will come to Middlebury for the first time on Thursday, Oct. 4.  The Middlebury Performing Arts Series will present the quartet at the Mahaney Center for the Arts. The concert will include Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 5 in A Major, Op. 18, No. 5; Ravel’s String Quartet in F Major, M. 35; and Shostakovich’s String Quartet No. 3 in F Major, Op. 73.
Performing Arts Series Director Allison Coyne Carroll first encountered the Jerusalem Quartet at a live BBC-broadcast concert at London’s Wigmore Hall in 2016.
“The quartet was a joy to watch; very communicative and expressive while they play, and the audience was rapt throughout — offering a thunderous ovation at the end,” Carroll said. “I was already leaning towards bringing them to Middlebury when I learned from friends Diana and Emory Fanning that the violist, Ori Kam, was a camper at Point Counter Point in his youth. That simply sealed the deal.”
The members of the Jerusalem Quartet are Alexander Pavlovsky, violin; Sergei Bresler, violin; Ori Kam, viola; and Kyril Zlotnikov, cello. Since the ensemble’s founding in 1993 and subsequent 1996 debut, the four Israeli musicians have developed a wide repertoire, carrying on the string quartet tradition with a warm, full, human sound and an egalitarian balance between high and low voices.
The Jerusalem Quartet will perform on Thursday, at 7:30 p.m., in Robison Hall. Tickets are $28 for adults; $22 for Middlebury College faculty, staff, emeriti, and alumni; $10 for youth 18 and under; and $6 for Middlebury College students, and are on sale at 802-443-MIDD (6433) or middlebury.edu/arts/tickets.