Posted on Feb 20, 2002

Schenectady, N.Y. (Feb. 20, 2002) – The Artemis Quartet, who swept the top awards at the German Music Competition in 1995, the Munich Competition in 1996, and the Borciani Competition in 1997, will perform on Sunday March 3, at 3 p.m. in Union College's Memorial Chapel, as part of the Union College Concert Series.

The performance will feature Mozart's Quartet in G, K. 387; Ligeti's Quartet No. 1 (Metamorphoses nocturnes); and Mendelssohn's Quartet in A minor, Op. 13, “Ist es Wahr?” (“Is it True?”).

On its North American debut tour as winner of the Borciani International String Quartet Competition in 1998, the Artemis Quartet performed nine concerts in twelve days, including appearances in Chicago, Washington, New Orleans, Cincinnati and Columbus, where a critic called their electrifying performance a “stunning, even visceral, experience.” Its subsequent tours in 2000 and 2001 included performances at Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall, the Library of Congress, and the University of California at Los Angeles.

The Artemis has gone on to appear in major venues from the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam to the Salzburg Festival, the Beethovenhaus in Bonn and Wigmore Hall in London. Its performances have inspired such critical acclaim as “already at the top” (Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung
) and “a young wonder” (Braunschweiger Zeitung).

Formed at the Musikhochschule in Lübeck, Germany, where its members studied with Walter Levin, formerly of
the LaSalle Quartet, the Artemis Quartet also worked with the Alban Berg
Quartet in Cologne, and in master classes with the Emerson and Juilliard
Quartets.  In spite of its immediate success, the Artemis focuses
constantly on the quality of its musicianship. In 1998, at the invitation
of the Alban Berg Quartet, the Quartet was in residence at the Musikhochschule
in Vienna, where it enlarged and deepened its repertoire and musical knowledge.

In 1999, the young musicians accepted an invitation from the Berlin Science Academy to live and work intensively for three months with luminaries from other fields such as physics, literature, art, history and mathematics. During this time, the Artemis scheduled no concerts in
order to concentrate on this experience. The Quartet continues to reside in Berlin.

The Artemis Quartet's recordings, released by Ars Musici, include works by Mozart, Beethoven, Wolf,
Zemlinsky, Webern, Berg, Ligeti, and, in 2001, Brahms and Verdi.

Tickets at $20 ($8 for students) are available in advance at the Office of Communications, Union College (518) 388-6131 and at the door at 7 p.m. For more information, call 372-3651.

The Union College Concert Series is made possible, in part, with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency;
additional support comes from the Times Union Newspapers. Memorial Chapel is
located near the center of the Union College campus.

Parking is available on campus and nearby side streets.