The Grammy Award-winning Pacifica Quartet

The Concord Chamber Music Society will present the multiple-Grammy Award-winning Pacifica Quartet in concert at 1:30 pm on Sunday, March 12, 2023, at the Concord Academy Performing Arts Center. With a career spanning nearly three decades, the Pacifica Quartet has achieved international recognition as one of the finest chamber ensembles performing today. The program will include the Spiritual Fantasy No. 12 by Frederick Tillis, the String Quartet No 2 in F Major, Op. 92 by Sergei Prokofiev and the String Quartet No. 14 in A-flat Major, Op. 105 by Antonín Dvořák.

Known for its virtuosity, cohesiveness and exuberant performance style, the Pacifica Quartet has established itself as the embodiment of the senior American quartet sound. Since its formation in 1994, the ensemble has been the recipient of the 1998 Naumburg Chamber Music Award, Chamber Music America’s Cleveland Quartet Award in 2002 and a prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant. Named faculty string quartet-in-residence at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music in 2012, the Quartet was previously quartet-in-residence at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Pacifica received its second Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance for Contemporary Voices (2020), featuring the works of three Pulitzer Prize-winning women. The Quartet also leads the Center for Advanced Quartet Studies at the Aspen Music Festival and School. In 2008 the Quartet released its Grammy Award-winning recording of Carter’s quartets Nos. 1 and 5 on the Naxos label; the 2009 release of quartets Nos. 2, 3, and 4 completed the two-CD set. Cedille Records released the group’s four-CD recording of the entire Shostakovich cycle, paired with other contemporary Soviet works, to rave reviews: “The playing is nothing short of phenomenal.” (Daily Telegraph, London)