UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Last season the St. Lawrence String Quartet premiered a three-year Center for the Performing Arts program featuring all of Ludwig van Beethoven’s string quartets. The ensemble-in-residence at Stanford University returns to open the second season of Beethoven’s chamber masterworks with a concert at 7:30 p.m. Nov. 14, in Penn State’s Schwab Auditorium.
Violinist Geoff Nuttall and violist Lesley Robertson, founding members, are joined by cellist Christopher Costanza and violinist Scott St. John. The program includes the quartets in B-flat Major, Op. 18, No. 6; F Major, Op. 59, No. 1; and E-flat Major, Op. 127
“These are fearless musicians,” wrote a Washington Post critic, “whose spontaneity stretches past conventional interpretation and probes the music’s imaginative limits.”
The public is invited to a free Beethoven Salon Evening at 7 p.m. Nov. 12 at The Nittany Lion Inn Board Room. The 90-minute event will feature the St. Lawrence ensemble performing excerpts of Beethoven quartets with discussion led by faculty from the Penn State School of Music.
The public is also welcome to observe a St. Lawrence String Quartet master class for School of Music string students at 10 a.m. Nov. 13, at Music Building I’s Esber Recital Hall. James Lyon, professor of music at Penn State, will lead the session.
The concert and related engagement activities are part of the second season of the Center for the Performing Arts Classical Music Project, a three-year outreach program funded, in part, by a major grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. For more information, go to www.cmp.psu.edu.
The Nina C. Brown Endowment sponsors the Nov. 14 concert. WPSU is the media sponsor. Artistic Viewpoints, an informal moderated discussion featuring a visiting artist, will be offered in Schwab one hour before the performance and is free for ticket holders.
Find the Center for the Performing Arts on Facebook at www.facebook.com/PSCPA.
Tickets for the Center for the Performing Arts presentation are $42 for an adult, $15 for a University Park student and $32 for a person 18 and younger. Tickets are available online at www.cpa.psu.edu or by phone at 814-863-0255 or 1-800-ARTS-TIX. Tickets are also available at four State College locations: Eisenhower Auditorium (8 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays), Penn State Downtown Theatre Center (9 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekdays and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturdays), HUB-Robeson Center Information Desk (11 a.m. to 2 p.m. weekdays) and Bryce Jordan Center (10 a.m. to 6 p.m. weekdays). A grant from the University Park Allocation Committee makes Penn State student prices possible.