Miró Quartet to complete Beethoven cycle

The Miró Quartet returns to UB next month to perform the final three concerts in this year’s Slee/Beethoven String Quartet Cycle.

The Miró performed the first three concerts of the cycle last September. This is the first time in recent memory that a single quartet is performing the complete string quartets of Beethoven at UB. This year marks the 59th season of UB’s Slee/Beethoven String Quartet Cycle.

The quartet will finish the cycle in concerts taking place at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 13 and Feb. 14, and at 3 p.m. Feb. 15, all in Lippes Concert Hall in Slee Hall, North Campus.

In addition to performing, quartet members will conduct a master class at 11 a.m. Feb. 14 in Baird Recital Hall, 250 Baird Hall, North Campus. The class is free and open to the public.

Tickets for the concerts are $15 for the general public and $10 for UB faculty/staff/alumni, seniors and non-UB students. UB students are admitted free with valid ID to all music department concerts.

Tickets may be purchased at the Center for the Arts box office or at Tickets.com.

Founded in 1995, the Miró Quartet took its name from the Spanish artist Joan Miró, whose surrealist works — with subject matter drawn from the realm of memory and imaginative fantasy — are some of the most original of the 20th century.

Arguably the finest string quartet of its generation, the Miró is consistently praised for its deeply musical interpretations, exciting performances and thoughtful programming. Each season, it performs throughout the world in the most important chamber music series and on the most prestigious concert stages, garnering accolades from critics and audiences alike.

Concert highlights of recent seasons include a highly anticipated and sold-out return to Carnegie Hall to perform Beethoven’s complete Opus 59 quartets (which also was recorded); collaborations with award-winning actor Stephen Dillane as part of Lincoln Center’s White Lights Festival and festival appearances at Chamber Music Northwest, Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival, Music@Menlo and Ottawa ChamberFest.

The quartet — Daniel Ching and William Fedkenheuer, violin; John Largess, viola; and Joshua Gindele, cello — has taken first prizes at several national and international competitions, including the Banff International String Quartet Competition and the Naumburg Chamber Music Competition. In 2005, the Miró  became the first ensemble ever to be awarded the coveted Avery Fisher Career Grant.

The Miró Quartet has served as the quartet-in-residence at the University of Texas at Austin’s Sarah and Ernest Butler School of Music since 2003.