Emerson String Quartet Brings a Bonus for Music Students

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Four young Dartmouth musicians will be playing before Emerson String Quartet violist Lawrence Dutton as part of a master class arranged by the Hopkins Center for the Arts.

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Lawrence Dutton, the violist with the Emerson String Quartet, will conduct a master class for Dartmouth music students. (Photo courtesy of Lawrence Dutton)

 

The class, an intensive forum in which students perform and are critiqued and tutored in the finer points of their performance, is set for 4 p.m. Oct. 21 in the Spaulding Auditorium at the Hopkins Center. It is free and open to the public.

“The students are working with professionals here in preparation for the master class and the public is invited to witness the interaction that will take place at the session,” says Steve Swayne, Jacob H. Strauss 1922 Professor of Music and chair of the Department of Music.

Lawrence Dutton, the visiting artist conducting the master class, is a member of the renowned Emerson String Quartet. The quartet has more than 30 acclaimed recordings, nine Grammy awards (including two for best classical album), three Gramophone Awards, the Avery Fisher Prize, and was named Musical America’s “Ensemble of the Year.”

The full Emerson String Quartet will perform in concert at the Hop at 7 p.m., also on Oct. 21, featuring works by Ravel, Britten, and Shostakovich, and there will be a post-performance discussion.

 

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Dartmouth students rehearse for their upcoming master class, from left, Tom Cheng ’15, Prajan Divakar ’16, visiting student Michaela Helble, and Nana Adjeiwaa-Manu ’16. (Photo courtesy of Steve Swayne)

In the Dartmouth student group are Nana Adjeiwaa-Manu ’16, cello; Tom Cheng ’15 and Prajan Divakar ’16, violins; and Michaela Helble, viola. Helble is an exchange student from Bowdoin College.

“I urge people to come to hear some of the superb student musicians we have at Dartmouth,” says Alex Ogle, senior lecturer in music and director of Dartmouth’s Performance Laboratory in Chamber Music. “I do know that the level of musicianship represented in this group of students is very high.”

Joseph Blumberg