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Antares has "the gift of making whatever they're
playing seem the most important piece in the world," declared
Gramophone
magazine in its rave review of the group's debut CD Eclipse on the Innova
label. Named after the brightest star in the Scorpius constellation, and
one of the most luminous stars in the nighttime sky, Antares identifies
its artistic mission with Scorpius' essence of change, rebirth, and
bringing new life to old forms. Comprised of four virtuoso
instrumentalists, Antares draws from a vast and colorful repertoire for
clarinet, violin, cello and piano, as well as all their various trio and
duo combinations. This versatility allows them to create programs which
present the chamber masterworks of the Classical and Romantic eras
alongside some of the most evocative and exciting music from the 20th and
21st centuries. Hailed by The Chicago
Tribune as "powerful," "striking" and "razor-sharp," Antares'
high-energy performance style and remarkable ensemble dynamic led to the
quartet's selection as First Prize winner
of the 2002 Concert Artists Guild International Competition.
The ensemble's unique instrumentation was popularized by the visionary
French composer Olivier Messiaen in
one of the greatest and most influential works in the chamber music
repertoire, Quatuor
Pour La Fin du Temps. Having performed and explored the many
aspects of this masterpiece for nearly a decade, Antares is considered to
be one of its foremost advocates. In 2004, in partnership with the
University of Iowa, they received a CMA
Residency grant to present a four-day interdepartmental series
focused on the Quartet,
culminating with a critically acclaimed performance at Hancher Auditorium.
Antares looks forward to bringing this extraordinary work to an
ever-widening audience in 2008, in celebration of Messiaen's centennial
anniversary.
Further concert engagements for the group include the Los Angeles County
Museum of Art, The Kennedy Center, Chamber Music Cincinnati, Merkin
Concert Hall, Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall and Brooklyn Friends of
Chamber Music in New York City, the Krannert Center at the University of
Illinois, the Raleigh Chamber Music Guild (NC) and Panama's Asociación
Nacional de Conciertos. The ensemble's distinctive sound was featured in a
program on Minnesota Public Radio's ever-popular series
Saint Paul Sunday which, after
several nationwide broadcasts, is now available in their online archives.
Having completed two-year residencies at both Columbia and Wesleyan
universities, Antares is widely admired and sought after for ensemble
coachings, lectures, master classes and readings of student compositions.
The ensemble was invited to do a presentation on educational outreach by
the Eastman School of Music, as part of their renowned chamber music
program. Passionately dedicated to bringing music to the community outside
the concert hall, the four young musicians consider music education in the
classroom (K through 12), and interactive concerts/lectures for general
audiences, to be vital and indispensable aspects of their vocation.
Antares has completed further educational residencies at the Aspen School
of Music, University of California, San Diego, Market Square Concerts (PA)
and the La Jolla Music Society's Discovery Series, where the quartet's
performance was described by The San
Diego Reader as "exciting, expressive, nuanced and captivating."
Antares' numerous festival appearances include the Bayview Music Festival
(MI), the Huntington Summer Arts series (NY), the Chautauqua Institution,
the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, the Norfolk Contemporary Music
Seminar and Chamber Music Festival, and a three-part series at the
International Festival of Arts and Ideas, New Haven (CT). Antares was
twice Ensemble-in-Residence at the Festival Eleazar de Carvalho in
Fortaleza, Brazil, and has performed at the Tuckamore Festival in St.
John's, Newfoundland.
Having won two ASCAP/CMA Awards for
Adventurous Programming ('99, '04), a recent
New York Times review perfectly
described Antares' approach to the music they perform: "The four musicians
play with superb technical polish and, equally important, a sense that
they not only are comfortable with this music but also understand its
vocabulary and syntax." This sentiment was seconded in August 2005 when
Antares' appearance on New York's River to River Festival was featured in
Time Out New York as follows: "a
small ensemble that affords color, flexibility and heft in one tidy
package... including an invaluable dedication to living composers that has
garnered well-deserved acclaim."
In their continuing quest for expanding the ensemble's repertoire, Antares
has commissioned and premiered a substantial number of works by highly
regarded composers, such as Ezra Laderman, Stefan Freund, Kevin Puts,
members of the Minimum Security Composers Collective, John Mackey (with
the Parsons Dance Company at The Joyce in New York), Oliver Schneller
(through a Meet the Composer grant), Dan Visconti (through a grant from
BMI) and Carter Pann, whose work Antares was commissioned by CAG. In
addition to its 2005 release Eclipse,
featuring six captivating new works, Antares has also recorded Ned Rorem's,
The End of Summer, on the Newport Classics label and Fred Lerdahl's,
Marches, which was released in 2006 by Bridge Records.
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