ELEMENTS QUARTET BIOGRAPHY
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The Elements Quartet is dedicated to communicating the
excitement of chamber music to contemporary audiences of all ages.
Founded in the summer of 1999, the ensemble has already won acclaim
for its passionate performances and dynamic programs. The quartet's
repertoire ranges from popular masterpieces to neglected treasures,
and from Baroque classics to newly commissioned works by today's
most celebrated composers- an eclectic and expansive view of the
quartet literature that is unified by the group's keen musicianship
and its fresh insights into how chamber music can connect with
today's listeners.
Called "an important new ensemble" by the composer David Del Tredici,
the Elements Quartet is a partnership of highly skilled musicians.
In contrast to some quartets, which form when their players are
students, the four musicians of the Elements Quartet enjoyed
successful individual careers in major international orchestras and
distinguished chamber-music ensembles before their mutual love for
the quartet sound brought them together. The Quartet carries forward
a long chamber music tradition, having studied with members of the
Cleveland, Tokyo, Juilliard, and Guarneri quartets.
The Elements Quartet selected its name for its evocative musical and
metaphysical associations. The ancient Greeks saw Air, Earth, Water,
and Fire as the elements that formed the natural world. Scientists
of the 20th Century defined the cosmos with the Table of Elements.
Today's researchers are exploring our elements in the Human Genome
Project. In a string quartet, each member contributes a unique
musical, human, and creative element that knits together to form a
seamless whole. All of these definitions merge to form the artistic
vision of the Elements Quartet. Like the word, Elements has a
multiplicity of meanings and messages, yet always seeks to find the
irreducible core - the basic material that is universal to us all.
Based in the New York metropolitan area, the Elements Quartet
performed last summer to critical acclaim at important venues,
including Rutgers Summer Fest, Caramoor Festival, Norfolk Chamber
Music Festival/Yale School of Music, and the Kent/Blossom Music
Festival. The quartet received grants from the Arthur Judson
Foundation and the National Orchestral Association for the
commission of a new string quartet by noted New Jersey composer
David Sampson. Last summer, it was the recipient of a major grant
from the Koussevitzky Foundation to commission the first string
quartet by Pulitzer Prize- winning composer David Del Tredici. The
premiere of this important new work, titled "Wondrous the Merge," is
planned for Spring 2002. Elements Quartet was honored last year by
being awarded the Norfolk/Yale Debut Prize for outstanding new
ensemble. In Fall 2001, the quartet was featured on MetroArts 13 in
a PBS program from the Caramoor Festival with Peter Oundjian,
Artistic Director of the Caramoor Festival.
INDIVIDUAL BIOGRAPHIES
 Jeffrey
Multer comes to the Elements Quartet with a distinguished resume
as a quartet player, soloist, and concertmaster. As a chamber
musician, he has served as first violinist of the Oxford String
Quartet, as a member of the Kennedy Center Theater Chamber Players,
and has been at the core of the Great Lakes Chamber Festival in
Detroit, Michigan. As a soloist, he has appeared in recent years to
critical acclaim in Virginia, and at the Rudolphinium in Prague.
Jeff's concertmaster experience is similarly impressive having led
the orchestras of the Echternacht Festival in Luxembourg, the
Eastern Music Festival in North Carolina (where he has also appeared
as soloist several times), and the Colorado Symphony in Denver.
The Detroit Free Press praised Jeff for his "Extraordinary precision
and poise", and the Cleveland Plain dealer applauded his "prodigious
and aristocratic violin playing". He began studies at age 5, then,
at 16, moved to New York City to continue studies at the Juilliard
School, where he was the recipient of a Lincoln Center Fellowship.
He has studied under some of the finest quartet musicians of our
time, most notably Arnold Steinhardt and Michael Tree of the
Guarneri Quartet and Shmuel Ashkenasi of the Vermeer Quartet. Mr.
Multer has recorded for Albany records.
 Evan
Mirapaul's career has included positions as Assistant Principal
Second Violin with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and the
Montreal Symphony Orchestra. He has also been a member of the
orchestras of Caracas, Phoenix and the San Francisco Opera. Most
recently he was a Visiting Professor of Violin at the University of
Akron in Ohio.
Mr. Mirapaul has studied with Maurico Fuks
and Gyorgy Sebok at the Indiana University School of Music in
Bloomington, Indiana, where he earned a Performer's Certificate in
Violin Performance. As a chamber musician he has performed as part
of the Pittsburgh Chamber Music Project and the Montreal Camerata.
Evan has spent summers at the Garth-Newell Festival in Virginia, the
Yale-Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, and as Associate Concertmaster
of the Colorado Philharmonic Summer Festival Orchestra.
 Violist
Danielle Farina is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of
Music where she studied with Karen Tuttle. She was the recipient of
several awards while a student, most notably Grand Prize, First
Prize, and prize for "most beautiful sound" at the 1996 American
String Teacher's Association Competition. Upon graduation, she
joined the renowned Lark Quartet, of which she was a member for
three years.
Touring extensively with the Lark in North America, Europe, and
Scandinavia, Ms. Farina performed at some of the most prestigious
venues and festivals including the Great Performers Series and the
Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center, Library of Congress,
Smithsonian Institution, Schleswig Holstein Festival, and the
International Istanbul Music Festival.
Ms. Farina collaborated with numerous performing artists, namely
pianists Gary Graffman, Grant Johannesen, Joanne Polk, Jerome
Lowenthal, violist Joseph DePasquale, and cellist/composer Giovanni
Sollima. Composer collaborations involved Peter Schickele, Aaron J.
Kernis, and Jennifer Higdon. Ms. Higdon's piece "Scenes from the
Poet's Dreams" was written for the Lark and Mr. Graffman and was
commissioned by the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society. Mr.
Sollima's "Viaggio in Italia" for quartet, voice, and cello was
another important project. It was commissioned by Milanese jewler
Gianmaria Buccellati and premiered at Carnegie Hall with the
composer performing. Mr. Sollima has also written a piece for solo
viola expressly for Ms. Farina, which will be premiered this year in
New York.
Ms. Farina can be heard in a recording of "Viaggio in Italia" on the
Agora label, as well as on the Arabesque label in the string
quartets of Aaron J. Kernis commissioned by the Quartet, and with
pianist Joanne Polk in works of Amy Beach.
Ms. Farina's other artistic pursuits include performances at Weill
Recital Hall as part of Carnegie Hall's Making Music Series and at
the 92nd Street Y with pianist Maurizio Pollini as part of the
Perspectives Series. Ms. Farina has also performed as guest artist
with the Bachmann-Klibonoff-Fridman Trio on their series at the
Morgan Library and with pianist Michael Boriskin and Music from the
Copland House.
 Peter
Seidenberg began his studies at the age of six. His first
teacher, with whom he studied for
twelve years, was Nell Novak of the Music Center of the North Shore
in Winnetka, Illinois. After high school he went on to receive his
Bachelor of Music degree from the Eastman School of Music and his
Masters degree from the New England Conservatory, graduating from
both schools with the highest honors. During the course of his
study, Mr. Seidenberg was awarded the prestigious Eastman School of
Music Performer's Certificate as well as an Artist Diploma from the
Cleveland Institute of Music. His principal teachers have included
Paul Katz, Bernard Greenhouse and Alan Harris.
As a chamber musician and soloist, Mr.
Seidenberg has played throughout Europe, America and Asia. He made
his concerto debut in 1983 with the Chicago Symphony and has since
gone on to play solos with the De Paul Chamber Orchestra, the
Eastman-Rochester Philharmonic, the New American Chamber Orchestra,
and the Century Orchestra of Osaka, Japan. His chamber music
partners have not only included members of major orchestras such as
Cleveland, Chicago, Philadelphia and New York, but also major
pianists such as Richard Goode, Andras Schiff and Mitsuko Uchida.
Further, he played with members of the Cleveland, Juilliard and
Emerson String Quartets and has participated in the Marlboro, Aspen
and Norfolk summer music festivals.
Mr. Seidenberg has recorded for RCA and
Pantheon. Radio broadcasts have included appearances on French
National Radio, Air Aspana, Scandinavian National Radio, and Asahi
and NHK Broadcasting in Japan. |
