Known for their expert interpretations of 20th century and contemporary works, the Paris-based Diotima Quartet has recently been announced as the new Don Michael Randel Ensemble-in-Residence at the University of Chicago for the 2020-21 academic year.
This is the second time a string quartet serves as ensemble in residence at the university.
In parallel to the residence, the quartet will also be on tour in North America.
"We are very excited to bring our music and our inquisitiveness as an ensemble to the University of Chicago," said the violist Franck Chevalier to The Strad. "Music is a remarkable language that can reveal connections among a great diversity of people and ideas, and it can elucidate seemingly unconnected subjects in new ways."
The Strad also relates the comments of Seth Brodsky, associate professor in the department of music of the University of Chicago about the Diotima Quartet: "Very few string quartets out there - very few ensembles of any kind, really - harness the history of their own genre as precisely, and with as much poetry, as Diotima, [...] Their concerts have an epic quality. They don’t just play Schubert next to a Rebecca Saunders quartet from 2017; they tie the two together, they perform the thread between them. They make music history feel like a grand experiment again."
“The University is thrilled to welcome Quatuor Diotima to campus [...] the ensemble’s infectious sense of curiosity and its commitment to rigorous exploration through music of topics ranging from visual art to human development to mathematics aligns perfectly with the commitment to intense interdisciplinary inquiry that permeates the campus,” said David Levin, the school’s Senior Adviser to the Provost for Arts has this week said as reported by The Violin Channel.
Click here to read the full article from The Strad.
Click here to read the full article from The Violin Channel.
Click here to read about the residence in the Chicago Classical Review.
Click here to learn more about the Diotima Quartet.