Thalea String Quartet will Give a groupmuse Concert

For the past two weeks the Thalea String Quartet (TSQ) has been collaborating with the Joe Goode Performance Group (JGPG) in preparation for a run of shows that JGPG will be presenting at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Prior to the beginning of that run, TSQ will be giving a recital at the Joe Goode Annex, which will be offered as a groupmuse “house concert.” For this event three of the TSQ founders, violinists Christopher Whitley and Kumiko Sakamoto and violist Luis Bellorin, will be joined by interim cellist Brady Anderson. These players are shown below in right-to-left order:

courtesy of the Thalea String Quartet

The program TSQ has prepared may be called a “classical and beyond” offering. They have expanded their repertoire of the string quartets of Joseph Haydn by preparing his Hoboken III/79 in D major, the fifth of the six quartets dedicated to Count Joseph Erdödy, which were probably written between 1796 and 1797. This relatively late quartet by Haydn will begin the program and will be complemented at the end of the program by one of the late works of Haydn’s best-known pupil, Ludwig van Beethoven. The program will conclude with his Opus 133, published in 1827 under the title “Große Fuge” (great fugue). Beethoven had originally intended this to be the final movement of his Opus 130 quartet in B-flat major; and, to reflect on that past context, TSQ will precede Opus 133 with a performance of the fifth (Cavatina) movement from Opus 130, the fugue’s original predecessor. The Haydn and Beethoven selections will be separated with a performance of much more recent music, the third movement (“Dimensions”) from Garth Knox’ three-movement suite Satellites, which was written for the Kronos Quartet under the auspices of their 50 for the Future commissioning project.

This performance will begin at 7 p.m. on Friday, June 16. It is expected to run for about two hours. The Joe Goode Annex is located in NEMIZ (the NorthEast Mission Industrial Zone) at 401 Alabama Street. Admission will require a $10 minimum donation for the performers. Specifics are maintained on the groupmuse Web page through which reservations must be made. Up to 50 people will be admitted, and one can consult the Web page to see how many are already registered. Those who attend may bring a bottle of liquid refreshment.