Danish String Quartet to perform classical, folk works April 6

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Four musician friends who call themselves the Danish String Quartet will make their Penn State premiere in a program featuring classical music from Hungary and Germany, plus folk songs from the Nordic countries. The performance will be at 7:30 p.m. Friday, April 6, in Schwab Auditorium.

The program will include Béla Bartók’s String Quartet No. 1 in A minor; Ludwig Van Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 7 in F Major, Op. 59, No. 1; and selections from the quartet’s Nordic folk recordings “Wood Works” and “Last Leaf.”

The Danish String Quartet features violinists Frederik Øland and Rune Tonsgaard Sørensen, violist Asbjørn Nørgaard and cellist Fredrik Schøyen Sjölin. Since emerging on the chamber music scene in 2002 at the Copenhagen Summer Festival, the young musicians have delivered skilled interpretations of the classical masters, as well as energetic renditions of Nordic folk compositions.

The quartet kicked off a crowdfunding campaign to record its 2014 album “Wood Works.” That recording’s traditional folk songs and dances “are buffed and polished to a glossy concert-hall sheen,” wrote a reviewer for Gramophone. “Last Leaf,” released in 2017, was listed as one of the top classical albums of the year by NPR, WQXR, The New York Times, The Boston Globe and Spotify.

A New York Times critic chose the ensemble’s 2012 and 2015 New York City concerts as those years’ highlights, praising “one of the most powerful renditions of Beethoven’s Op. 132 String Quartet that I’ve heard live or on a recording. The adventurous young members of the Danish String Quartet play almost everything excitingly.”

For more information about the performance, or a free public master class featuring members of the quartet, visit the Center for the Performing Arts online or call 814-863-0255.

The John L. Brown and Marlynn Steele Sidehamer Endowment provides support for the concert. WPSU is the media sponsor.

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