The internationally acclaimed group Quatuor Diotima is coming to the University of Missouri for a residency that will include two performances and the world premiere of a new commissioned work composed by Mizzou post-doctoral fellow Yoshiaki Onishi.
Formed in 1996 by graduates of the Paris National Conservatory, Quatuor Diotima (pictured) is a string quartet that performs contemporary classical music and offers a fresh look at works by the great composers. The quartet’s members are violinists Yun-Peng Zhao and Constance Ronzatti, violist Franck Chevalier, and cellist Pierre Morlet.
They will perform at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, February 20 at Whitmore Recital Hall on the Mizzou campus, presenting a program that will include music by Beethoven and Alban Berg in addition to Onishi’s “String Quartet No. 2,” which was written with a commission from the Fromm Music Foundation. Admission to the concert is free and open to the public.
The quartet will conclude their residency with a concert at 7:00 p.m. Saturday, February 22 at First Baptist Church, 1112 E Broadway, performing works by Berg and Bartók and teaming up with Mizzou’s Esterhazy Quartet for the rarely heard Shostakovich Octet.
Tickets for Saturday’s concert, which is a co-presentation of the Mizzou New Music Initiative and the Odyssey Chamber Music Series, are $20 for general admission, $10 for students with ID, free for children under 12, and can be purchased online at https://www.odysseymissouri.org/tickets.html.
During their residency on campus, Quatuor Diotima also will read works by student composers; coach the members of the Mizzou New Music Ensemble; and make a recording of Onishi’s new quartet.
Named after a work by Italian avant garde composer Luigi Nono, Quatuor Diotima has toured the United States, Asia, Australia, and South America and performed at major European festivals and venues, such as the Berlin Philharmonie, Berlin Konzerthaus, Reina Sofia in Madrid, Cité de la musique in Paris, Wigmore Hall and SouthBank Centre in London, the Vienna Konzerthaus, and more.
Quatuor Diotima has worked with major composers including Pierre Boulez, Helmut Lachenmann, Toshio Hosokawa, and Brian Ferneyhough, and have commissioned new works from composers Gérard Pesson, Alberto Posadas, Oscar Bianchi, James Dillon, Miroslav Srnka, Rebecca Saunders, Pascal Dusapin, Tristan Murail, and more. They also have won several international competitions, and have recorded for NEOS, Kairos, Alpha Productions, ECM, and Naïve.