| Date and venue | Title |
|---|---|
| 7-Apr-2013 Sydney Conservatorium of Music: Verbrugghen Hall | Inspirational performances of Mendelssohn, Dohnányi and Franck at the Musica Viva Festival |
 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 expanded his soul”. Some suspect that the author might have had Franck’s Sonata for violin and piano in mind.Read full review... | |
| 6-Apr-2013 Sydney Conservatorium of Music: Verbrugghen Hall | Enigmas and emotions: Outstanding chamber musicians at the Musica Viva Festival in Sydney |
 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. But what makes the String Quartet in B flat Op. 130 so great?Read full review... | |
| 23-May-2012 Montreal Chamber Music Festival at St George's Church | The Pacifica Quartet's Second Installment in a Shostakovich Cycle |
 The highly talented Pacifica Quartet offered the second installment of their complete Shostakovich string quartet cycle tonight in Montréal’s Église St. George as part of the Montréal Chamber Music Festival. An immensely versatile ensemble, the Pacifica Quartet was formed in 1994, quickly winning a number of chamber music competitions around the world. They now tour extensively through the United States, Europe and Asia, and serve as quartet-in-residence at the University of Illinois, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the University of Chicago.
Read full review... | |
| 11-Apr-2012 UCLA: Royce Hall | The “Pacifica Quartet Experience” at Royce Hall |
 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.
Read full review... | |
