Escher String Quartet and Jason Vieaux, guitar

Adam Barnett-Hart (Violin)
Wu Jie (Violin);
Pierre Lapointe (Viola)
Dane Johansen (Cello)

The Escher String Quartet has received acclaim for its individual sound, unparalleled artistry and unique cohesiveness.  The Quartet has performed at prestigious venues and festivals across the United States and abroad, including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, 92nd Street Y and Symphony Space in New York, Boston's Gardner Museum, Dallas Chamber Music Society, Fortas Series at the Kennedy Center, New Orleans Friends of Music, University of Colorado at Boulder, Orange County Performing Arts Center and the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, The Louvre in Paris, Hangzhou Grand Theatre in China, as well as at the Ravinia, Santa Fe Chamber Music, Music@Menlo, La Jolla SummerFest, Gold Coast, Caramoor, World Science, Harrogate International, Gregynog, City of London and Cheltenham Festivals.  Currently one of the BBC’s prestigious New Generation Artists, the Quartet recently completed its three-year residency as artists of The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s “CMS Two” program and has collaborated with such eminent artists as Andrés Diaz, Lawrence Dutton, Kurt Elling, Leon Fleisher, Lynn Harrell, Wu Han, Jeffrey Kahane, Joseph Kalichstein, Pepe Romero, David Shifrin, pop folk singer-songwriter Luke Temple, Jason Vieaux and Pinchas Zukerman.

Within months of its inception in 2005, the Quartet was invited by both Pinchas Zukerman and Itzhak Perlman to be quartet-in-residence at each artist's summer festival: The Young Artist Programme at Canada’s National Arts Centre and The Perlman Chamber Music Program on Shelter Island, NY.  In addition, the ensemble has served as the Ernst Stiefel String Quartet-in-Residence at Caramoor – they performed String Quartet #4, their first commissioned work by Pierre Jalbert – and from 2007 to 2009 joined the faculty of Stony Brook University as Visiting Artist-in-Residence in a unique relationship with the world-renowned Emerson String Quartet.

The Escher begins its 2011-2012 season by performing at the opening night concert of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, with Vivian Fung’s Pizzicato for String Quartet, Bottesini’s Gran duo concertante and Mendelssohn’s Octet for Strings in E-flat, Op. 20.  This is the first of multiple performances at Lincoln Center during the season including Dedicated to Mendelssohn, featuring the quartet performing works by and dedicated to Mendelssohn and New Music, consisting of works by modern composers.  The Escher continues its extremely successful collaboration with guitarist Jason Vieaux with a residency for Music in the Park in St. Paul, MN, Candlelight Concerts in Columbia, MD and Newtown Friends of Music.  The Quartet is also in residency at the Chamber Music Society of St. Cloud where celebrated mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke joins them for Barber’s Dover Beach and dich, mein Gott, um meiner Zähren Willen! from Bach’s St. Matthew Passion.  International engagements take the Escher to the United Kingdom for its Wigmore Hall debut with additional concerts in Perth, Norwich and Sage Gateshead.  The Quartet also debuts on tour in Turkey and in Australia. 

As BBC’s ‘New Generation Artists’ for 2010-2012, the Escher records for BBC in Fall of 2011 and Spring 2012.  Additional recording projects include the complete Zemlinsky quartets for Naxos and the complete Mendelssohn quartets for BIS, to be released in Fall 2011 and Summer 2012, respectively.  Previous recordings include 2010’s Stony Brook Soundings, Vol. 1, which features the Quartet in the premiere recordings of five new works by Daniel A. Weymouth, Max Giteck Duykers, Ilari Kaila, Eugene Drucker (of the Emerson String Quartet) and Perry Goldstein; 2008’s Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center recording of Amy Beach’s Piano Quintet and Alan Louis Smith’s Vignettes: Covered Wagon Woman; and 2007’s Bridging the Ages from Music@Menlo, featuring a Boccherini Guitar Quintet with Jason Vieaux, Mendelssohn String Quartet and Bottesini’s Gran duo concertante.  Also recorded for Music@Menlo are Stravinsky’s Three Pieces for String Quartet, Purcell’s Fantasia upon One Note, Haydn’s String Quartet in B-Flat Major, Op. 76 No. 4 “Sunrise”, Shostakovich’s String Octet, Gruenberg’s Four Diversions and Wolf’s Italian Serenade in G Major.

The ensemble takes its name from Dutch graphic artist M.C. Escher and draws inspiration from the artist’s method of interplay between individual components working together to form a whole.

"…among the elite of today's classical guitarists."  —Gramophone

One of the “youngest stars of the guitar world” (New York Times, 2010), Jason Vieaux is a musician noted for virtuosic and stirring performances, imaginative programming, and uncommon communicative gifts.  His collaborations with the Escher Quartet, flutist Gary Schocker, harpist Yolanda Kondonassis, mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke, and bandoneon/accordion virtuoso Julien Labro continue to display Vieaux’s broad range of musical interests.  Recent career highlights include solo performances at Lincoln Center, Spivey Hall, the Chautauqua Festival, and a return to Music@Menlo.  This season, he will debut at the  Caramoor Festival and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and has numerous return engagements, including appearances at the 92nd St. Y “Guitar Marathon”, the Peninsula Music Festival, the Maverick Series, Fontana Chamber Arts, the Elgin Symphony, and a Hartt School of Music residency. In addition, two extensive chamber music tours with The Curtis Institute of Music are slated for spring 2012.

In 2011-2012 Mr. Vieaux will perform concertos with the Buffalo Philharmonic, the Santa Barbara Chamber Orchestra, the Ft. Wayne Philharmonic, and the symphonies of Richmond, Kitchener-Waterloo and Amarillo -- works by Rodrigo, Vivaldi, Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Roberto Sierra and Poul Ruders.  He has to date played concertos with more than 50 major orchestras, working with conductors David Robertson, Miguel Harth-Bedoya, Michael Stern, Jahja Ling, Stefan Sanderling, David Lockington, Andrew Constantine, and Alasdair Neale.  His triumphant programs for Music@Menlo, the Strings Music Festival, the Grand Teton Festival and the Jupiter Chamber Players have forged his reputation as a first-rate chamber musician.  Vieaux’s passion for new music has fostered premieres of works by Dan Visconti, Jerod Impichchaachaaha' Tate, Eric Sessler, José Luis Merlin and Gary Schocker.

Jason Vieaux has 11 commercially successful CDs to his credit, with more to come via his contract with Azica Records.  A new CD of Astor Piazzolla’s music with bandoneonist Julien Labro and A Far Cry Chamber Orchestra will be released in 2011, and a new solo disc will arrive early 2012.  His Bach; Works for Lute, Vol.1 hit #13 on Billboard’s Classical Chart a week after its release, and received rave reviews by Gramophone, The Absolute Sound, and Soundboard.  Images of Metheny features music by American jazz legend Pat Metheny, who, after hearing this landmark recording, declared: "I am flattered to be included in Jason's musical world."  Sevilla: The Music of Isaac Albenizmade several Top Ten lists the year of its release.  Mr. Vieaux's CDs and live performances are regularly broadcast on radio and the internet, and he writes on various classical music topics for National Public Radio’s Deceptive Cadence blog series.  His communicative gifts are the subject of feature articles in print and internet media outlets around the world every year, including magazines such as Acoustic Guitar, MUSO and Gramophone.

In 2011, Jason Vieaux co-founded The Curtis Institute of Music Guitar Department with guitarist David Starobin.  He has been Head of the Guitar Department of the Cleveland Institute of Music since 2001, and is also affiliated with Philadelphia’s Astral Artists, with whom he gives annual outreach concerts.  Mr. Vieaux was the youngest First Prize winner in the history of the prestigious Guitar Foundation of America International Competition. He is a Naumburg Foundation Competition top prizewinner, a Cleveland Institute of Music Alumni Achievement Award recipient, a Salon di Virtuosi Career Grant winner, and a former NPR Young-Artist-in-Residence.  In 1995, Mr. Vieaux was an Artistic Ambassador of the US to Southeast Asia, touring 7 countries, and he now regularly concertizes abroad to Asia, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. His primary teachers were Jeremy Sparks and John Holmquist.