Upcoming Concerts     Past Concerts    CD     Reviews    Videos

April 10, 2010,
2pm

Strathcona String Quartet
Music with the Moravians concert series

Admission by donation at the Edmonton
9540 - 83 Avenue

up

The Strathcona String Quartet has performed world premieres of numerous contemporary works. They have premiered works for the ECCS Edmonton New Music Festival (Edmonton composers George Andrix, Roger Deegan, Piotr Grella-Mozejko, David Roxburgh, Dave Wall), a Thom Golub recording, Jeff McCune and Mile Zero Dance Company (with Brian Webb), Dave Wall’s premiere recital, the Lloydminster Jazz Series (Andrix, Shades of Blue), among many others.

February 19, 2010,
3:30PM
Strathcona String Quartet
Hawrelak Park
Silver Skate Festival
Nov 6 and 7, 2009 20 REGIONS OF ITALY EXTRAVAGANZA WEEKEND

January 25, 2008

Download MP3 Samples:
Press Kit

NEW CD
Strathcona String Quartet
“Blue by Four” CD release concert and party

Guest Artists:
Joel Gray, Trumpet
John Taylor, Bass

Sunday, January 25, 2009, 2 PM
Yardbird Suite
11 Tommy Banks Way

Tickets $10, available at the door
CDs are $20, available at the door (or online)

Also available at the Gramophone in Edmonton
8724 - 109 Street
Edmonton, Alberta
T6G 1E9 Canada

 

To listen to their June 22, 2008 concert as part of the Edmonton International Jazz Festival go to:
CBC-Concerts-on-Demand

   

June 22, 2008

Jazz Festival Concert: Strathcona String Quartet with guests Joel Gray on trumpet and John Taylor on bass.


Click to enlarge

Edmonton’s own Strathcona String Quartet joins forces with Edmonton jazz greats, Joel Gray on trumpet and John Taylor on bass, to play music from their new jazz CD, Blue By Four at the Edmonton Jazz Festival on Sunday, June 22, 2008 at 2:00 pm, at the Catalyst Theatre. 

The concert will feature jazz arrangements and original jazz compositions by Edmonton composer, George Andrix that will appeal to classical and jazz music fans alike.  Andrix’s music is both very enjoyable for musicians to play and well-received by listeners.  The Jazz Festival audience will love it!

February 15, 2008

City Hall, Edmonton. Silver Skate Festival official opening. Jazz quartet works by George Andrix and original standards.
Edmonton, AB

December 31, 2007
City Hall as part of Edmonton’s “Cultural Capital Celebrates New Year’s Eve. Mozart String Quartet, Fauré Pavane, Smoke gets in your eyes and Fly me to the Moon (arr. George Andrix).
Edmonton, AB
April 28, 2007

Convocation Hall, University of Alberta
Edmonton, Alberta
Roger Deegan Memorial Concert for the Edmonton Composers’ Concert Society
Works by Edmonton composers George Andrix, Roger Deegan, Thom Golub and Dave Wall will be featured.

January 17, 2007
McDougal United Church (map)
Banquet Hall
Edmonton, Alberta
(Admission free)
January 27, 2007 Jasper United Church (map)
Jasper, Alberta
Works by Dvorak, Mozart and Andrix
January 28, 2007 Roundhouse Theatre
McBride, British Colombia
Works by Dvorak, Mozart and Andrix
February 3, 2007 All Saints’ Anglican Cathedral (map)
Edmonton, Alberta
Works by Dvorak, Mozart and Andrix
November 23, 2005 Deegan, Shostakovich, Beethoven and Andrix.
Presented by yhe  McDougall Concert Association
2005 Quartet’s well-received, often sold-out Alberta and British Columbia concert tour featured the stunning late Beethoven quartet, Opus. 130, and the Shostakovich String Quartet #8, (subtitled “To the Memory of Victims of Fascism and War,” and including the horrific “Dance of Death”). 
2005 The Strathcona String Quartet was asked by the Province of Alberta to participate in their “Alberta Tracks” concert tour – A Centennial Music Celebration, which took them throughout Alberta.
2003 They completed a highly successful tour of Alberta in 2003, presenting the complete string quartet works of George Andrix.
November 9, 2003 Edmonton Composers' Concert Society presented the Strathcona String Quartet, Convocation Hall, UofA, playing Andrix.
December 6, 2002 Bach, Christmas Oratorio presented by Keyano College Visual &Performing Arts,
May 29, 1997: Brahms quintet; presented by the McDougall Concert Association
May 28, 1997 Brahms quartet; presented by the McDougall Concert Association
May 22, 1997 Brahms Trio and Quintet; presented by the McDougall Concert Association
May 1, 1991 Faculty Club, UofA, playing Mozart, Haydn, Bach.

In years past, the quartet has performed Baroque, Classical, Romantic and Contemporary repertoire at major Alberta venues including Muttart Hall at Alberta College, Grant MacEwan’s John L. Haar Theatre, The King’s University College Nicholas B. Knoppers Hall, McDougall United Church (for the 1997 Brahms Chamber Music Festival), Robertson Wesley United Church, Holy Trinity Anglican Church, Convocation Hall at the University of Alberta, Augustana University College, and Yellowknife Arts Centre.

up


CKUA-Classic Examples - Radio Host Marc Antonelli invites
(Click to listen to the announcement)

Press

Click here to read the article


Click here to read the article

Strathcona String Quartet Sets Place At The Table for Blues Alongside Classical

An Arts Jasper November 23, 2005 Concert Review
by Gregory Deagle
Jasper Booster

The recital began with Beethoven's String Quartet in B Flat Major, Opus 130.  At a playing time of approximately forty five minutes, this mature work written when the great composer had succumbed to nearly total deafness, ranks among one of the longest compositions for string quartet in music history.

It's six ambitious movements chart a difficult course through bizarre syncopations and challenging entrances punctuated now and then by abrupt changes in tempo, so abrupt in fact that the piece  seemed to occasionally morph into an altogether different piece resulting in a provocative psychological tension.  One listener even suggested with this composition Beethoven breached the limits of traditionalism by venturing  perilously close to the avant garde. As eccentric a work as it is, the Strathcona String Quartet met with every one of it's demands with due competence and elegance particularly in the Finale where an industrious basso line kept violist Moni Mathew well occupied.

With bio-notes that read like an eventful Jack London novel, an unassuming violinist, composer and conductor named George Andrix complements the Edmonton-based Quartet's line-up.  Andrix introduced the Shostakovich  String Quartet No. 8 in C Minor, Opus 110, starkly known as "In Memory Of The Victims Of Fascism And War," with a sobering preamble.

Dmitri Shostakovich was an embittered Russian composer, he explained, whose genius and personality were more than out of place in the Stalinist Russia of the thirties and forties.  As a convinced believer in Russian Socialism, Shostakovich  was brutally attacked in the official Soviet newspaper 'Pravda' for leftist distortion in 1936.  Realizing it was a fight to the death for his conscience as an artist and creator, he shunned society for fifteen years. During this time he wrote five symphonies and several string quartets including the 8th Quartet, an opus which he firmly insisted would be his last.  Luckily, for Western music it wasn't.

Typical of all of Shostakovich's works, the 8th Quartet is marked by emotional extremes, tragic intensity, grotesque and bizarre wit, humour, parody and savage sarcasm.  He even "signed" the indictment with the melody of his musical monogram, DSCH (D, E-flat, C, B).  This somewhat eerie grouping of notes forms a sort of tonal motif that recurs throughout the piece as it moves from one tragic movement to the next, the third being the Allegretto or "Dance Of Death" as it is commonly known.  This grim passage is adorned with a sardonic trill that quivers vulnerably like a pale leaf in a shrill wind.

In the atmosphere of the Great Terror that gripped Russia, Stalin's KGB officers would comb the streets  ruthlessly apprehending innocent civilians and intelligentsia. The Largo movement featured a sinister build-up of minor chords culminating in three aggressively executed down bows. Convincingly played, this clever piece of musical drama evoked the KGB's dreaded knocks on doors behind which entire families feared for their lives.

For a program so entrenched in deliciously morose works of tortured genius, the Aaron Copland-like "Bashaw Boogie" written by Alberta composer, Roger Deegan and George Andrix's "Shades Of Blue" were informal and delightful.  Andrix comes by his proficiency with blues honestly having composed, produced,  played all the parts and even sang on his own CD, The Complete Blues Viola.  "Shades Of Blue" took the audience on a sort of musical tour through blues inventions and studies.  From deconstructing then reconstructing blues chords ("Reconstruction") to a loose, improvisational jam ("Wandering Boogie"), these five short pieces displayed the lighter side of string music while setting a congenial place at the table for blues alongside classical.

Jasper was left in awe of the Strathcona String Quartet's outstanding
degree of musical understanding and professionalism, and their apparent
comfort level in undertaking and performing works that run the gamut of
human experience.

Contact us to discuss programming.

Web Design: Erik Visser (www.erikvisser.com)