MIDDLEBURY — To celebrate Beethoven’s 250th birth year, the Heath Quartet will present his entire string quartet cycle over the course of six concerts in Middlebury this season. This dynamic and charismatic British chamber ensemble will perform a free concert on Saturday, Jan. 11, at 7:30 p.m. Saturday’s concert will feature Beethoven’s first string quartet composition, Quartet no. 3 in D Major, op. 18; his last; Quartet no. 16 in F Major op. 135; and the first Razumovsky Quartet no. 7 in F Major, op. 59.
No tickets are required for this concert, thanks to a gift from the Sunderman Family Concert Endowment Fund, in memory of Dr. F. William Sunderman Jr. and Dr. Carolyn Reynolds Sunderman; audience members are encouraged to arrive early for best seating. Music professor Larry Hamberlin will offer a free pre-concert lecture at 6:30 p.m.
The Heath Quartet will participate in a full week of master classes and coaching sessions with students on campus and in the community before closing their winter stay with a second concert on Friday, Jan. 17, featuring Quartet no. 4 in C Minor, op. 18; Quartet no. 12 in E-flat Major, op. 127; and the third Razumovsky Quartet no. 9 in C Major, op. 59. A cash bar and light refreshments will be available before this concert and during intermission. Reserved seating tickets for the Jan. 17 performance are $22 for the general public; $16 for Middlebury College faculty, staff, alumni, and emeriti; $10 for youth; and $6 for Middlebury College students, and are on sale at (802) 443-MIDD (6433) or middlebury.edu/arts.
ABOUT THE QUARTET
In May 2013, the Heath Quartet — including violinists Oliver Heath and Sara Wolstenholme, violist Gary Pomeroy, and cellist Christopher Murray — became the first ensemble in 15 years to win the prestigious Royal Philharmonic Society’s Young Artists Award. In 2016 their recording of Sir Michael Tippett’s string quartets received widespread acclaim and won the Gramophone Chamber Disk of the Year. And just this past year, the Heath was included as one of the Top 10 String Quartets in a Gramophone list of “some of the greatest recordings available.”
In addition to their Middlebury residencies and concerts, the Heath’s 2019/20 season includes a debut at the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, and return engagements at Wigmore Hall and Handelsbeurs Ghent as well as various appearances throughout the UK. The quartet’s members are Professors of Chamber Music at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, individually holding instrumental teaching posts on the faculty.