Ariel Quartet
Zion’s Muse: Three Generations of Israeli Composers

Terrace Theater
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Washington, D.C.
Sunday, December 14th, 2014, 7:30 PM
Musicians
Ariel Quartet
Gershon Gerchikov, violin
Alexandra Kazovsky, violin
Jan Grüning, viola
Amit Even-Tov, cello

Tickets

Individual tickets ($44 each) are available at The Kennedy Center’s website or by calling (800) 444-1324. Alternatively, you can save $20 by subscribing to both this concert and the May 7, 2015 performance. To subscribe, call the Kennedy Center Subscription Office at (202) 416-8500, Mon.–Fri., 10 a.m.–5 p.m.

Concert Summary

Israel is less than 70 years old and yet it has produced three generations of visionary composers. In this 2014 Hanukkah-timed concert, Pro Musica Hebraica presents the young Israeli virtuosos of Ariel Quartet to trace the arc of modern Israeli music. The award-winning ensemble will perform two early classics by the founding father of Israeli classical music, German-born composer Paul Ben-Haim, together with a passionate late 1960s quartet composed by the middle generation master Mark Kopytman on the eve of his departure for Israel, and a moving spiritual meditation by contemporary composer Menachem Wiesenberg.

Performance Timing: Part One – 40 min.; Intermission – 15 min.; Part Two – 38 min.
Concert Program

BEN-HAIM: Prelude for string quartet –based on a traditional Sephardic tune (1973)
BEN-HAIM: String Quartet No. 1 (1937)
KOPYTMAN: String Quartet No. 3 (1969)
WIESENBERG: Between the Sacred and the Profane (1998)

“Exceptional boldness and confidence—a blazing, larger-than-life performance that seemed to celebrate the triumph of the human spirit, even from the depths of chaos.”—The Washington Post, on Ariel Quartet