Pacifica Quartet presents Shulamit Ran UK première

By James Moriarty, Royal Academy of Music, 16 March 2015

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“Ran’s musical and intellectual sensibilities are finely honed”

Reviewed at Wigmore Hall, London on 16 March 2015

Beethoven, String Quartet no. 6 in B flat major, Op.18 no.6

Ran, String Quartet no. 3 "Glitter, Doom, Shards, Memory" (UK première)

Mendelssohn, String Quartet no. 6 in F minor, Op.80

Pacifica Quartet

A quartet made for Shostakovich

Jeremy Eccles, 24th June

The American Pacifica Quartet was convincingly introduced to Aussie Nigel Westlake's Second Quartet for their Down Under tour; but revealed its essence in the theatre of Shostakovich.

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Inspirational performances of Mendelssohn, Dohnányi and Franck at the Musica Viva Festival

David Larkin, 7th April

At one point in Proust’s In Search of Lost Time, the narrator is listening to a sonata for piano and violin by the fictional Vinteuil, when “at a certain moment, without being able to distinguish any clear outline, or to give a name to what was pleasing him, suddenly enraptured, he tried to grasp the phrase or harmony – he did not know which – that had just been played and that had opened and expa

*****

Enigmas and emotions: Outstanding chamber musicians at the Musica Viva Festival in Sydney

David Larkin, 6th April

The noted Beethoven pianist Artur Schnabel was famously interested only in music that he felt was “better than it can be performed”. This idea of works which transcend any individual performance seems particularly true when it comes to Beethoven’s late string quartets, enigmatic masterpieces which continue to pose challenges to interpreters nearly two centuries after they were written.

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The “Pacifica Quartet Experience” at Royce Hall

Ted Ayala, 11th April

From across the centuries, the quartets of Beethoven and Shostakovich have come to be regarded as the twin pillars of the quartet repertoire. Think of them as the New Testament and the Old Testament. The Pacifica Quartet offered a program that sandwiched Shostakovich with a pair of quartets by Beethoven.The String Quartet No.

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Beethoven in good hands with the Pacifica Quartet at the Metropolitan Museum

Amanda Keil, 10th December

The Pacifica Quartet, now in its third year of residency at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, has the formidable task of taking up the role occupied by the Guarnieri Quartet, which played there for 43 of its 45 years. The Pacifica is relatively young, a year or so shy of its tenth birthday, but holds the promise of a venerable ensemble in the making, with chops and class to prove it.

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Nelson Goerner shines with the CBSO and Rachmaninov's Rhapsody

Robert Gainer, 9th April

The CBSO present the work of three European émigré composers of the 1930s and 40s, who reimagined their musical influences with contrasting approaches and results.

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James Moriarty, Royal Academy of Music

James Moriarty is a London-based composer of contemporary classical music, currently studying composition at the Royal Academy of Music with Philip Cashian, having been awarded the Charles W Black Fellowship and the Howard Hartog Scholarship. His work is generally concerned with a high degree of structural integrity and harmonic expressivity; due to interest in a wide range of musical styles and traditions, these overarching creative concerns manifest themselves in a varied output, comprising works of differing scales and modes of address. Alongside his work as a composer, James also pursues careers in musical journalism and education.