The Alexander Quartet [is] right up there with the best on today's international scene.

—San Francisco Chronicle

Program

DEBUSSY: String Quartet in G minor, Op. 10 (1893)
HAHN: Venezia (1901)
JAKE HEGGIE: Camille Claudel: Into the Fire (2012)—World Premiere

Encore:
STRAUSS: Morgen!

About This Performance

The Alexander String Quartet’s anniversary year is celebrated in a newly commissioned collaborative vocal quintet by composer Jake Heggie and librettist Gene Scheer featuring mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato. This work is based on the life of French sculptor Camille Claudel, Rodin’s lover, a confidante of Debussy and a genius in her own right.

Commissioned for Joyce DiDonato and the Alexander String Quartet by San Francisco Performances and funded by a generous gift from Linda and Stuart Nelson.

Read about Jake Heggie and his new work for the ASQ…

Artist Biography

The Alexander String Quartet has performed in the major music capitals of five continents, securing its standing among the world's premier ensembles over nearly three decades. Widely admired for its interpretations of Beethoven, Mozart, and Shostakovich, the Quartet has also established itself as an important advocate of new music through over 25 commissions and numerous premiere performances. The Alexander String Quartet is a major artistic presence in its home base of San Francisco, serving there as directors of the Morrison Chamber Music Center at the School of Music and Dance in the College of Creative Arts at San Francisco State University and ensemble-in-residence of San Francisco Performances.

The Alexander String Quartet’s annual calendar of concerts includes engagements at major halls throughout North America and Europe. The quartet has appeared at Lincoln Center, the 92nd Street Y and the Metropolitan Museum in New York City; Jordan Hall in Boston; the Library of Congress and Dumbarton Oaks in Washington; and chamber music societies and universities across the North American continent. Recent overseas tours have brought them to the U.K., the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, France, Greece, the Republic of Georgia, Argentina and the Philippines. The many distinguished artists to collaborate with the Alexander String Quartet include pianists Menahem Pressler, Gary Graffman, Roger Woodward, Jeremy Menuhin and Joyce Yang; clarinetists Eli Eban, Charles Neidich, Joan Enric Lluna and Richard Stolzman; cellists Lynn Harrell, Sadao Harada, and David Requiro; violist Toby Appel; and soprano Elly Ameling. Among the quartet’s more unusual collaborations has been numerous performances of Eddie Sauter’s seminal Third Stream work, Focus, in collaboration with Branford Marsalis, David Sánchez and Andrew Speight.

The Alexander String Quartet's 25th anniversary as well as the 20th anniversary of its association with New York City's Baruch College as Ensemble in Residence was celebrated through a performance by the ensemble of the Shostakovich string quartet cycle. Of those performances at the Baruch Performing Art Center Engelman Recital Hall, The New York Times wrote, “The intimacy of the music came through with enhanced power and poignancy in the Alexander quartet’s vibrant, probing, assured and aptly volatile performances.…Seldom have these anguished, playful, ironic, and masterly works seemed so profoundly personal.” The Alexander was also awarded Presidential Medals in honor of their longstanding commitment to the Arts and Education and in celebration of their two decades of service to Baruch College.

Highlights of the 2010–11 season included a two multiple concert series for San Francisco Performances, one presenting the complete quartets of Bartók and Kodály and the other music of Dvořák; the conclusion of a Beethoven cycle for Mondavi Center; and a continuing annual series at Baruch College in New York City. The quartet also performs an all-Beethoven program at the Lied Center of Kansas, two tours of Spain (including the inaugural performances of a new festival in Godella), and a second tour of Argentina. They also continue their annual residencies at Allegheny College, Lewis & Clark College, and St. Lawrence University.

Over the past decade the Alexander String Quartet has added considerably to its distinguished and wide-ranging discography. Currently recording exclusively for the FoghornClassics label, the Alexander’s most recent release (June 2009) is a complete Beethoven cycle. Music Web International has described the performances on this new Beethoven set as “uncompromising in their power, intensity and spiritual depth,” while Strings Magazine described the set as “a landmark journey through the greatest of all quartet cycles.” The FoghornClassics label released a three-CD set (Homage) of the Mozart quartets dedicated to Haydn in 2004. Foghorn released a six-CD album (Fragments) of the complete Shostakovich quartets in 2006 and 2007, and a recording of the complete quartets of Pulitzer prize-winning San Francisco composer, Wayne Peterson, was released in the spring of 2008. BMG Classics released the quartet's first recording of Beethoven cycle on its Arte Nova label to tremendous critical acclaim in 1999.

In celebration of the Alexander String Quartet's 30th anniversary this season, San Francisco Performances has commissioned a new work for string quartet and mezzo-soprano from Jake Heggie; the work will be premiered in a performance in collaboration with Joyce DiDonato in February 2012 at the Herbst Theater. Other recent Alexander premieres include Rise Chanting by Augusta Read Thomas, commissioned for the Alexander by the Krannert Center and premiered there and simulcast by WFMT radio in Chicago. The quartet has also premiered String Quartets Nos. 2 and 3 by Wayne Peterson and works by Ross Bauer (commissioned by Stanford University), Richard Festinger, David Sheinfeld, Hi Kyung Kim, and a Koussevitzky commission by Robert Greenberg.

The Alexander String Quartet was formed in New York City in 1981 and the following year became the first string quartet to win the Concert Artists Guild Competition. In 1985, the quartet captured international attention as the first American quartet to win the London International String Quartet Competition, receiving both the jury’s highest award and the Audience Prize. In May of 1995, Allegheny College awarded Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degrees to the members of the quartet in recognition of their unique contribution to the arts. Honorary degrees were conferred on the ensemble by St. Lawrence University in May 2000.

Zakarias Grafilo, violin 1: Zakarias Grafilo joined the Alexander String Quartet in July of 2002. Prior to that he served as principal second violinist of the Pacific Symphony, and Concertmaster of the Stockton Symphony. Grafilo was co-founder of the Chamberlain String Quartet, which was assistant quartet-in-residence to the Alexander String Quartet at San Francisco State University. He received his early musical training at the Preparatory Division of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and was later admitted into the Marin Music Conservatory where he studied with Serban Rusu. He received his early orchestral training with the world-renowned San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra where he was Concertmaster in 1992. Grafilo continued his studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, studying with Alexander Treger, Concertmaster of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Liberal Studies from San Francisco State University.

Frederick Lifsitz, violin 2: Frederick Lifsitz studied violin in his native Boston with Marylou Churchill and at Indiana University with Paul Biss. As a member of the Alexander String Quartet he has performed throughout Europe and North America, appearing regularly at halls such as Amsterdam’s Concertgebauw and New York City’s Lincoln Center. He has been an Artist in Residence at the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies in Wye, Md. and has held similar positions at St. Lawrence University, Baruch College, and North Carolina School of the Arts. Prior to joining the Alexander Quartet Lifsitz performed over several seasons with the Boston Symphony and taught chamber music and violin at the New England Conservatory Preparatory School. Lifsitz continues to perform as soloist and in recital.

Paul Yarbrough, viola: Paul Yarbrough is a native of Clearwater, Fla., and a founding member of the Alexander String Quartet. Yarbrough’s teachers have included Elaine Lee Richey, Lillian Fuchs, Raymond Page and Sally Peck. A frequent soloist with orchestras, he has also given numerous solo recitals throughout the U.S. and was principal violist of the Chamber Orchestra of New England. In 1995, Yarbrough and his quartet colleagues received Honorary Doctorates of Fine Arts from Allegheny College for their service to the arts and education and a Honorary Degree from St. Lawrence University. Mr. Yarbrough serves on the board of the San Francisco Friends of Chamber Music.

Sandy Wilson, cello: A native of Northumberland, England, Sandy Wilson completed his graduate studies at the Royal Danish Conservatory in Copenhagen as a recipient of two Danish Government Scholarships and the Sophus Berendsen Award. While performing as a member of the Royal Chapel Orchestra, he studied composition with Niels Vigo Bentzon and cello with Erling Blöndal-Bengtsson. Wilson was principal cellist at the age of 21 in the Allgemeine Musikgesellschaft Orchestra in Lucerne, Switzerland, at which time he also performed extensively in duo recital with Swiss pianist, Hedy Salquin. In 1979 Wilson moved to the U.S., completing a degree at Yale University as a student of Aldo Parisot, Otto Werner Mueller and the Tokyo Quartet. He co-founded the Alexander String Quartet in 1981 and has since lived in this country, devoting most of his energies to the development of the Quartet. Wilson has written and frequently participates on panel debates on the subject of chamber music residency development and presentation. He currently serves as an elected board member of Chamber Music America and is a member of the California Cello Club.

Joyce DiDonato consistently earns ecstatic reviews wherever she sings. Among the world’s most charismatic performers, she is winner of the Metropolitan Opera’s Beverly Sills Award, among many other honors. “The buoyant progress of DiDonato’s career has been one of the happiest opera events of the past decade,” states Opera News magazine. Critics have called her technique “fearless” and described the range of her performing ability from “playful eroticism to imploding self-delusion to near-catatonic depression.”

Ms. DiDonato has soared to international prominence in operas by Rossini, Handel, and Mozart, as well as in high-profile world premieres. Her growing discography has earn accolades far and wide. Her Wigmore Hall recital disc was a Gramophone “Editor’s Choice”. The Deepest Desire, her first solo disc, was awarded France’s Diapason d’or de l’année, an extraordinary honor for a recording of American songs. Her CD of Spanish songs, ¡Pasión!, was a London Sunday Times “Classical CD of the week”, praised for its “authentic-sounding Iberian fire” and dubbed the disc “that admirers of the young American mezzo have been waiting for.”

Her signature parts are in Rossini’s La cenerentola and Il barbiere di Siviglia – her Rosina in “Barber” at the Metropolitan Opera won over audiences in New York and on cinema screens all over the world, and she was called “the best Rosina around” by the London Sunday Times for the portrayal.

After beginning her career in the U.S., Joyce DiDonato soon developed a growing and enthusiastic worldwide following in opera, concert and recital. In addition to appearing on the world's major opera stages – in Amsterdam, Barcelona, Chicago, Geneva, London, Milan, Munich, New York, Paris, San Francisco, and Tokyo, to which she adds Vienna and Berlin this season – she has given recitals and concerts at Wigmore Hall, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, and Carnegie Hall, and with the New York Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Orchestre National de Paris, St. LukeÕs Chamber Orchestra, and St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. Ms. DiDonato has had important triumphs at the Rossini Festival in Pesaro and in performances and recordings with Alan Curtis's ensemble, Il Complesso Barocco and William Christie and his Arts Florissants.

Born and educated in Kansas, the dynamic and engaging mezzo soprano was a member of the young artist programs of the San Francisco, Houston Grand, and Santa Fe Opera companies after graduate studies at Philadelphia’s Academy of Vocal Arts.

Joyce DiDonato gave her Metropolitan Opera debut as Cherubino in Le Nozze di Figaro, sang her role debut as Sesto in Mozart’s La Clemenza di Tito at the Geneva Opera, and returned to Covent Garden as Rosina in a new production of Il Barbiere di Siviglia – receiving the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Singer of the Year award. She reprised her tour-de-force as Dejanira in Handel’s Hercules in New York and London, earning a prestigious Laurence Olivier Award nomination for Outstanding Achievement in Opera. London’s Guardian newspaper stated “Joyce DiDonato gives the performance of a lifetime as Dejanira, hurling out coloratura with the fury of a psychopath before descending into insanity.” Finally, she capped off the season with a triumphant role debut in the title part of Massenet’s Cendrillon at Santa Fe Opera.

Gramophone commented about her most recent complete opera recording, Handel’s Floridante: “Joyce DiDonato’s silvery singing is beautiful, stylish, dramatically astute yet unforced.” Her extensive discography includes a disc of Handel duets with soprano Patricia Ciofi; complete recordings of Rossini’s Cenerentola, Handel’s Radamisto and Floridante, Berlioz’s Benvenuto Cellini, and DVDs of Handel’s Hercules and Rossini’s Barbiere di Siviglia. She can also be heard in a survey of Antonio Vivaldi’s sacred music, as well as on three solo CDs – The Deepest Desire, ¡Pasión!, and her debut recital from London’s Wigmore Hall. At Houston Grand Opera she premiered and recorded the roles of Meg in Mark Adamo’s highly acclaimed Little Women, and of Katerina Maslova in Tod Machover’s epic Resurrection, both of which were recorded and are currently available.

Honors – in addition to the Met’s Beverly Sills Award – bestowed upon Ms. DiDonato include the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Singer of the Year; the Richard Tucker Award, given to a single American singer annually; second place in Plácido Domingo’s Operalia, and prizes from the George London Foundation, the ARIA Award Foundation, and the Sullivan Foundation.

Jake Heggie is the American composer of the operas Moby-Dick (libretto: Gene Scheer), Dead Man Walking (libretto: Terrence McNally), Three Decembers (libretto: Scheer), The End of the Affair (libretto: Heather McDonald), To Hell and Back (libretto: Scheer), and the stage works For a Look or a Touch (libretto: Scheer) and At the Statue of Venus (libretto: McNally). He has also composed more than 200 art songs, as well as orchestral, choral and chamber music. His recent recording of songs and duets, Passing By: Songs by Jake Heggie, (AVIE), features performances by Isabel Bayrakdarian, Zheng Cao, Joyce DiDonato, Susan Graham, Paul Groves, Keith Phares, and Frederica von Stade.

Heggie is the 2010-11 guest artist-in-residence at the University of North Texas at Denton, where he will compose his first symphony, based on several Ahab monologues from the novel Moby-Dick. The "Ahab" Symphony will receive its premiere in 2012 with tenor Richard Croft as soloist. Other current projects include song commissions from Carnegie Hall (for Joyce DiDonato), San Francisco Performances (for DiDonato and the Alexander String Quartet), The Dallas Opera (for baritone Nathan Gunn), and Houston Grand Opera (to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks); as well as a one-act opera for chorus for the John Alexander Singers and the Pacific Chorale, and a new version of For a Look or a Touch that features the 200-voice Seattle Men's Chorus.

Heggie's operas have been performed to tremendous acclaim internationally in Australia, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Sweden, Ireland, Austria, South Africa and by more than a dozen American opera companies, including: San Francisco Opera, New York City Opera, Houston Grand Opera, The Dallas Opera, Seattle Opera, Ft. Worth Opera, Cincinnati Opera, Pittsburgh Opera, Austin Lyric Opera and Madison Opera. Dead Man Walking has been performed nearly 150 times since its San Francisco premiere in 2000, making it one of the most performed new American operas. Moby-Dick received its 2010 world premiere at The Dallas Opera and was co-commissioned by Dallas with four other companies: San Francisco Opera, San Diego Opera, Calgary Opera and the State Opera of South Australia.

The composer's numerous songs and cycles, including The Deepest Desire, Statuesque, Here & Gone, Rise & Fall, Songs & Sonnets to Ophelia, Facing Forward/Looking Back, Friendly Persuasions, and Songs to the Moon, are featured in recitals around the world by some of the world's most beloved and celebrated singers. Among those who regularly champion Heggie's works are sopranos Emily Albrink, Isabel Bayrakdarian, Kristin Clayton, Nicolle Foland, Audra McDonald, Emily Pulley, Talise Trevigne, Kiri Te Kanawa; mezzos Zheng Cao, Joyce Castle, Catherine Cook, Joyce DiDonato, Susan Graham, Kristine Jepson, Frederica von Stade; Broadway soprano Patti LuPone; tenors Stephen Costello, Paul Groves, Ben Heppner, Nicholas Phan; and baritones Philip Cutlip, Daniel Okulitch, Keith Phares, Morgan Smith and Bryn Terfel.

Heggie is an ardent champion of writers. Most of his operas and stage works feature libretti written by either Terrence McNally or Gene Scheer; while sources for song texts and poetry have also included Maya Angelou, Charlene Baldridge, Raymond Carver, Emily Dickinson, John Hall, A.E. Housman, Vachel Lindsay, Philip Littell, Armistead Maupin, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Sister Helen Prejean, Gini Savage, Vincent Van Gogh, Frederica von Stade, and Eugenia Zukerman, to name a few. The composer has a close association with the conductor Patrick Summers, who has led the world premieres of all the composer's major operas; and the director Leonard Foglia, who has directed the premieres of Moby-Dick, Three Decembers, and The End of the Affair, as well as the United States national tour of Dead Man Walking.

Recordings of Heggie's compositions include Passing By: Songs by Jake Heggie (Avie), Dead Man Walking (Erato), Three Decembers (Albany), Flesh and Stone (Americus), To Hell and Back (Magnatune), The Faces of Love (RCA Red Seal), The Deepest Desire (Eloquentia), and For a Look or a Touch (Naxos). Heggie was the recipient of a 2005/2006 Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship and has been composer-in-residence for the San Francisco Opera, Eos Orchestra, and Vail Valley Music Festival. As a coach and teacher, he has given classes at universities throughout the United States and at summer festivals such as SongFest in Malibu and the Steans Institute at Ravinia. Jake Heggie lives in San Francisco.

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