Tue 5/4 @ 7:30PM
The 26-year-old Pacifica Quartet started on in California, hence the name (although violinist/founding member Simin Ganatra was an Oberlin Conservatory student at the time). Since then it’s been resident performing artist at the University of Chicago, on the faculty of the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, and currently quartet-in-residence and faculty members at the acclaimed Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. They perform the classics, of course, but they also champion contemporary composers, commissioning new works.
Anthony McGill is the principal clarinetist of the New York Philharmonic as well as its first African-American principal player. He too is a champion of new music. So he’s a natural fit for the quartet, and they’ll perform together at Akron’s EJ Thomas Hall for the Tuesday Musical Association.
They’ll give the audience something traditional — Brahms’ Clarinet Quintet in B minor, Op. 115 — along the 1924 La Oración del Torero by Spanish composer Joaquin Turina, and something brand new: James Lee III’s Quintet for Clarinet and String Quartet, which McGill and Pacifica gave its world premiere performance last month.
Go here for ticket information.