Shmuel Ashkenasi, Violin Mathias Tacke, Violin Richard Young, Viola Marc Johnson, Cello
With performances in practically every major city and every prestigious music festival in North and South America, Europe, the Far East, and Australia, the Vermeer Quartet has achieved international stature as one of the world’s finest classical music ensembles. Formed in 1969 at Marlboro, the Vermeer makes its permanent home in Chicago, while serving as resident artists at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb since 1970, and as Fellows at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester in England, where the quartet has given annual master classes since 1978. Since 1984 the quartet has been the resident quartet for Performing Arts Chicago. Recordings include the complete string quartets of Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, and Bartók, with various other works by Schubert, Brahms, Shostakovich, Mendelssohn, Schnittke, Verdi, Haydn, Tchaikovsky, and Dvorùák. The violinist Shmuel Ashkenasi was born in Israel, where he was a student of Ilona Feher. He later studied with Efrem Zimbalist at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia. He was the winner of the Merriweather Post Competition, a finalist in the Queen Elisabeth Competition, and second prize winner in the Tchaikovsky Competition. He has performed with many of the world’s leading orchestras in the United States, Europe, the Soviet Union, and Japan, and has appeared in recital with Murray Perahia and Peter Serkin. The violinist Mathias Tacke is originally from Bremen. He studied
