Grammy-nominated quartet to perform at MSU Texas
Midwestern State University will host the Grammy-nominated Dover Quartet for the next Music Series at Akin at 7:30 p.m., Tuesday, Feb. 7, in Akin Auditorium.
Two of the quartet’s Grammy nominations are current. Their recording of Beethoven: Complete String Quartets, Volume 2 – The Middle Quartets is nominated for Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance. In the Best Contemporary Classical Composition category, they are nominated for their recording of Andy Akiho’s Ligneous Suite with Ian Rosenbaum. The award winners will be announced. Feb. 5.
The Dover Quartet is the first string quartet in residence at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Joel Link, violin; Bryan Lee, violin; Hezekiah Leung, viola; and Camden Shaw, cello, make up the quartet, which has been called one of the greatest string quartets of the last 100 years by BBC Music Magazine.
In addition to its faculty role as the Penelope P. Watkins Ensemble in Residence at the Curtis Institute of Music, the Dover Quartet holds residencies with the Kennedy Center, Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University, Artosphere, and the Amelia Island Chamber Music Festival.
The group’s awards include a sweep of all prizes at the 2013 Banff International String Quartet Competition, grand and first prizes at the Fischoff Chamber Music Competition, and prizes at the Wigmore Hall International String Quartet Competition. They have also received the Avery Fisher Career Grant, Chamber Music America’s Cleveland Quartet Award, and Lincoln Center’s Hunt Family Award.
The program will include “Suite for String Quartet” by Mason Bates (b. 1977), Quartet No. 4 by Béla Bartók (1881-1945), and Quartet in A minor, D. 804, “Rosamunde” by Franz Schubert (1797-1828).
Lee has performed as a soloist with the
Philadelphia Orchestra and the Delaware, Lansdowne, and Temple University symphony orchestras, among others.
He was awarded the bronze medal at the 2005 Stulberg International String Competition and won second prize at the 2004 Kingsville Young Performers Competition. He has served as associate concertmaster of Symphony in C and the Curtis Symphony.
Leung has performed throughout North America and Europe as both a soloist and as the violist of the Rolston String Quartet—the first prize winner at the Banff International String Quartet Competition in 2016. In 2020, Leung was chosen as a violist for the renowned Rebanks Family Fellowship & International Performance Residency Program in Toronto. In 2016 he was awarded the grand prize at the Chamber Music Yellow Springs Competition.
Link is an active soloist and chamber musician; and has been a top prize winner of numerous competitions, including the Johansen International Competition in Washington, D.C., and the Yehudi Menuhin International Violin Competition in England, for which he was featured in The Strad magazine. He has appeared on numerous radio shows, including NPR’s From the Top.
Shaw won first prize and every special award at the Banff International String Quartet Competition in 2013 and the gold medal and grand prize in the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition in 2010. Highlights from recent seasons include performances with the Artosphere Festival Orchestra, where Shaw also holds the principal chair, and the release of his solo album by Unipheye Music, which earned critical praise.
The concert is sponsored by the Perkins-Prothro Foundation and Mrs. Dale Prothro with the Lamar D. Fain College of Fine Arts at MSU. The series debuted in spring 2012 and since has since hosted many notable classical musicians.