UGA Presents is bringing the Berlin Philharmonic Piano Quartet to Athens on March 6 for a 7:30 p.m. performance in Hodgson Concert Hall.
The quartet’s program will include the Georgia debut of the Piano Quartet composed by four-time Oscar nominee Danny Elfman. The concert will also feature Brahms’s Piano Quartet No. 1 and Frank Bridge’s Phantasy Quartet.
The Berlin Philharmonic Piano Quartet was established in 1985 as a chamber music ensemble of the Berliner Philharmoniker, one of the world’s leading orchestras. Today, the quartet consists of three members of the orchestra—violinist Luis Esnaola, violist Matthew Hunter and cellist Knut Weber—as well as the renowned pianist Markus Groh.
The four musicians devote themselves to the genre of the piano quartet, which has inspired nearly every great composer since the time of Viennese classicism. In addition to the more familiar quartets of classicism, romanticism and modernism, the repertoire of the Berlin Philharmonic Piano Quartet also includes rediscovered masterpieces of the literature and new commissions from contemporary composers.
Elfman’s Piano Quartet was commissioned by the Berlin Philharmonic Piano Quartet in 2017. A native of Los Angeles, Elfman has scored more than 100 films including Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, Milk (Oscar nominated), Good Will Hunting (Oscar nominated), Big Fish (Oscar nominated), Men in Black (Oscar nominated), Edward Scissorhands, Batman, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Alice in Wonderland, Silver Linings Playbook, American Hustle, Avengers: Age of Ultron and Spiderman. In addition to his film work, Elfman wrote the iconic theme music for the television series The Simpsons and Desperate Housewives.
The Berlin Philharmonic Piano Quartet’s Athens concert will be recorded for broadcast on American Public Media’s Performance Today, the most popular classical music program in the U.S.
A pre-performance talk will be given by Theresa Chafin, a graduate of UGA’s Hugh Hodgson School of Music. The talk begins at 6:45 p.m. in Ramsey Concert Hall.
Tickets for the concert start at $35 and can be purchased at the Performing Arts Center box office, online at pac.uga.edu or by calling 706-542-4400. A limited number of discounted tickets are available to current UGA students for $10 with a valid UGA ID (limit one ticket per student).
Hodgson Concert Hall and Ramsey Concert Hall are located in the Performing Arts Center at 230 River Road in Athens.