Concert: "A well seasoned Piazzolla and Catoire" by Utrecht String Quartet and pianist Anna Zassimova

Behind the iconic facade at 215 Laan van Meerdervoort in The Hague, chamber music concerts are held on a regular basis. On November 6, Utrecht String Quartet and pianist Anna Zassimova will perform a program with works by Georgy Catoire and Astor Piazzolla at the Davidsbündler Music Academy's salon.

Astor Piazzolla's beloved Four Seasons, heard here in string quartet formation, is coupled with the majestic piano quintet by Georgy Catoire. Interpretations by the Utrecht String Quartet and Anna Zassimova that leave your ears with plenty of seasoning - salt, pepper, herbs, and spices! 

Doors Open: 20:00

Concert Starts: 20:30

If you feel like listening to a "richly colored and intensely dramatic performance" (The New York Times), we invite you to join us for this concert of the Utrecht String Quartet. The quartet finds great joy in playing well-known works, well aware that the great composers wrote timeless masterpieces. However, the Utrecht String Quartet have also gained their excellent reputation because of their search for lost and forgotten repertoire and their collaboration with contemporary composers. The Utrecht String Quartet consists of Eeva Koskinen, 1st violin; Katherine Routley, 2nd violin; Mikhail  Zemtsov, viola; and Sebastian Koloski, cello. At this concert on November 6, they will perform Astor Piazzolla's beloved Four Seasons of Buenos Aires in an arrangement for string quartet by Yevgeny Zemtsov, 1940-2016.

For Catoire's Piano Quintet Op.28, they are joined by Anna Zassimova. She is a pianist of a kind rarely still found, the sort you’d imagine in the pages of a 19th century novel. Her playing bleeds with passionate intensity, all softness and fury, coupled with an unparalleled knowledge and sympathetic understanding of the works she plays. There’s nothing showy about it, though it’s riveting, and all the emotion – and my god there is plenty – is of the sort that can only be lived, and cannot be faked. Zassimova is a product of – perhaps the last generation of – the Great Russian School founded by Heinrich Neuhaus: Bayerische Rundfunk were the first of many to compare her playing to that of Richter and Gilels. The comparison is an apt one. She trained at the world-renowned Gnessin School in Moscow from age six. While studying her first degree (in piano, at Gnessin Academy, taught by Vladimir Tropp), she experienced the traumas of the collapse of the Soviet Union first hand and full-on, an experience she credits with causing her to “commit” to her art as the only stable point in what was, for her, a time of great instability. Her education, she explains, trained pianists’ hands and minds, almost from birth; it was at this time that piano became her soul. Personal circumstances led her to leave Russia for Germany during this period. She received a DAAD Fellowship to do so, and duly studied at the Karlsruhe Music University (under Michael Uhde und Markus Stange) where she now teaches.

We look forward to seeing you this evening for a wonderful concert filled with passion!

* One beverage prior to the concert is included in the ticket price. Beverages are available after the concert through a voluntary cash/pin contribution.

* Students must present a valid WO/HBO/MBO student card. 

* There are 30 General Admissions and 10 Student Tickets available for this event. 

PROGRAM: 

Georgy Catoire (1861-1926)

Piano Quintet Op.28

1. Allegro Moderato
2. Andante
3. Allegro con spirito e capriccioso

Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992)

Four Seasons of Buenos Aires

(arrangement for string quartet by Yevgeny Zemtsov, 1940-2016)

1. Invierno Porteno
2. Primavera Portena
3. Verano Porteno
4. Otono Porteno