PACIFICA PLAYS SHOSTAKOVICH DURING 2010-2011 SEASON
The Pacifica Quartet will perform the complete string quartets of Dmitri Shostakovich in Chicago, New York, and Urbana, Illinois during the 2010-2011 performing arts season. The Chicago cycle, including performance of the Shostakovich Piano Quintet with the young American pianist Orion Weiss, will take place in Roosevelt University's Ganz Hall. More information is available at http://pacificaquartet.com/shostakovich.html. The New York cycle will be presented by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, with four concerts in Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium at 7:00 PM on October 23 & December 4, 2010 and January 19 & February 19, 2011. For more information visit metmuseum.org/tickets/package/view.asp?id=451. The Urbana, Illinois cycle will be presented by the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts at University of Illinois, www.krannertcenter.com.

NEWSFLASH!!! PACIFICA WINS
2009 GRAMMY AWARD
The Pacifica Quartet won the 2009 Grammy Award for "Best Chamber Music Performance" for its recording of Elliott Carter's String Quartets Nos. 1&5 on the Naxos label, the first of a two-CD set of Carter's complete quartets released in celebration of the composer's 100th birthday. The recording's producer, Judith Sherman, was honored with a Grammy nomination for her work on the CD. The set's second CD, Carter's String Quartets Nos. 2, 3, & 4, was released shortly before the 51st Annual Grammy Awards ceremony was held on February 8, 2009.

PACIFICA QUARTET NAMED 2009 MUSICAL AMERICA ENSEMBLE OF
THE YEAR
On November 17, 2008, the Pacifica Quartet was named 2009 Ensemble of the Year by Musical America, its highest honor for excellence and achievement in the arts. The Pacifica joins an esteemed group of 2009 recipients, including Yo-Yo Ma as Musician of the Year; Marin Alsop as Conductor of the Year; Stephanie Blythe as Vocalist of the Year; and Christopher Rouse as Composer of the Year. "Our awardees represent all that is fresh, dynamic, insightful, and adventurous in the arts today, in addition to an being enormously talented and generous group of musicians."" said Ms. Stephanie Challener, publisher of Musical America. The awards coincide with publication of the 2009 Musical America International Directory of the Performing Arts, the indispensable resource of the performing arts industry containing detailed information for over 14,000 international arts organizations, artists, and artist managers.

CARTER CD ACCLAIMED BY CRITICS
Released in early 2008 to celebrate American master Elliott Carter’s centenary, the Pacifica Quartet’s recording of Carter’s quartets No. 1 and No. 5 on the Naxos label has been enthusiastically received by critics.  The New York Times called it “a stunning disc” that demonstrates the Pacifica’s “confirmed mastery.”  The Guardian acclaimed the Pacifica’s “assured understanding of the musical complexities and expressive possibilities,” and MusicalAmerica.com praised the CD for its “performances of distinction and accomplishment.”  The Pacifica’s eagerly-anticipated Carter CD follows the ensemble’s groundbreaking presentation of the composer’s five quartets in a single evening in 2002 and its many subsequent single-concert performances of the Carter cycle for appreciative audiences in the U.S. and abroad.  A recording of Carter’s quartets Nos. 2, 3, and 4 is planned for release in 2009. 
 
PACIFICA'S MASUMI ROSTAD WRITES ONLINE JOURNAL IN GRAMOPHONE MAGAZINE
The British classical music magazine Gramophone has asked the Pacifica Quartet's violist, Masumi Per Rostad, to contribute to its weekly online journal. His "tales from a quartet" include "Vacation: a time to catch up on sleep (and miss your colleagues...)" and "Back to work: the Pacifica's recording process revealed." More "tales" will be posted in the future. They can be found at gramophone.co.uk/interviews_detail.asp?id=2582. Rostad is one of four musicians featured in the Gramophone magazine online journal.
 
PACIFICA QUARTET AWARDED 2006 AVERY FISHER CAREER GRANT
At a ceremony in New York's Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts on May 2, the Pacifica Quartet was honored with the award of a prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant. As part of a major gift to Lincoln Center in 1974, the late Avery Fisher established an Artist Program that provides for career grants to talented young musicians with great potential for major careers. During the past 30 years many successful musicians, including Gil Shaham, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, David Shifrin, and Leila Josefowicz, have been identified early in their careers by the Avery Fisher Artist Program and supported with career grants. The Pacifica Quartet is only the second string quartet to be honored with this award.
 
PACIFICA ON THE COVER OF GRAMOPHONE MAGAZINE
The influential classical music magazine Gramophone featured the Pacifica Quartet prominently in its April 2006 edition. A large photo of the Quartet spread across the April 2006 cover, and the  Pacifica was the only American quartet on a list of "five new quartets you should know about." The lead article described the Pacifica as "one of the finest and most energetic quartets of the younger generation." It was especially lauded for its work to expand the traditional audience for string quartet music.
   
READ ABOUT PACIFICA IN FANFARE AND STRAD MAGAZINES
In case you missed them, articles about the Pacifica Quartet appearing in Fanfare and Strad magazines can be read by clicking on the links below. In the articles the Quartet talks about how they work together, the music they love, their distinctive style, and their future plans. Don't miss them!
Strad Magazine, June 2005
Fanfare July/August 05
   
PACIFICA QUARTET'S LONDON DEBUT PRAISED BY CRITICS 
The Pacifica Quartet's debut performance in London's famed Wigmore Hall on November 24, 2004 was warmly received by both audience and critics. "Spellbinding blend of subtlety and style" (The Daily Telegraph). "Performers of real insight and skill" (The Independent). "An auspicious debut for one of the most musically accomplished and enterprising younger ensembles" (Classical Source). "Breadth of understanding and vision" (The Guardian).
 
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS FACULTY APPOINTMENT
The Pacifica Quartet began a new residency as Faculty Quartet in Residence at University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois in September, 2003. The appointment includes teaching at the University of Illinois School of Music and a 3-concert performance series at the acclaimed Krannert Center for the Performing Arts. "They are quite a catch," said University of Illinois School of Music director Karl Kramer. "We were looking for an ensemble to regenerate our string program." The Pacifica Quartet will help build a new Chamber Music Institute, to be launched next year. The program is designed to equip young artists with skills in both music and performing arts management. "It will draw groups that have previously performed together and want to take advantage of what the School of Music and Krannert Center have to offer," said Kramer. "It takes both sides of the coin -- musical experience and business sense -- to succeed today. Nobody else is doing this."

CLEVELAND QUARTET AWARD
Pacifica Quartet Receives Cleveland Quartet Award!
The Cleveland Quartet Award is an honor given every two years in recognition of the work of a young American string quartet. The award was conceived as a way of continuing the legacy of the great Cleveland Quartet which disbanded in 1995 after decades of performing together. The prize includes a series of concerts matching the Cleveland Quartet’s final tour. The concerts will begin in 2003-4!

CARTER CYCLE PROJECT
Pacifica Quartet Takes Its Elliot Carter Quartet Cycle From Coast to Coast
In 2002 and 2003 we completed our project of performing the complete cycle of Elliott Carter's 5 string quartets. Robert Mann, former first violinist of the Julliard Quartet, writes, "I know that these five works will be ever present wherever music is important. I am grateful to have experienced them and to have known Elliot Carter, just as in an earlier time Ignaz Schuppanzigh knew Ludwig van Beethoven."

The possibility for us to be able to explore the complete string quartet output of this great American composer in depth has always been an intriguing one. Written over 40 years, these five quartets, when performed in sequence, reveal something of a spiritual autobiography not unlike the quartets of Beethoven, Bartok, or Shostakovich.

Our first Carter quartet cycle concert took place at Columbia University's Miller Theater on November 2, 2002, the second at University of Chicago on February 21, 2003, and the third on March 8, 2003 at UCLA. All five quartets were performed in one day with a dinner break in between to refresh the mind, palette, and the performers! Our next scheduled performance of the Carter quartet cycle will take place at the Edinburgh International Festival on August 26, 2003.


The Pacifica Quartet will perform three Saturday evening concerts at the Met during the 2009-2010 cultural season.  Concerts will be presented at 7:00 p.m. on October 24, 2009, January 16, 2010, and February 27, 2010.  For program information and tickets, visit www.metmuseum.org/tickets/package/view.asp?id=416.