The Shanghai Quartet (Weigang Li and Yi-Wen Jiang, violin; Honggang Li, viola; Nicholas Tzavaras, cello) is renowned for its passionate musicality, impressive technique, and multicultural innovations. Its elegant style melds the delicacy of Eastern music with the emotional breadth of Western repertoire, allowing it to traverse musical genres, from traditional Chinese folk music and masterpieces of Western music to cutting-edge contemporary works.
The Shanghai Quartet has served as Quartet-in-Residence at the John J. Cali School of Music at Montclair State University since 2002. They are also currently visiting guest professors of the Shanghai Conservatory and the Central Conservatory in Beijing.
Formed at the Shanghai Conservatory in 1983, the Shanghai Quartet has worked with the world’s most distinguished artists and regularly tours the major music centers of Europe, North America, and Asia. Recent seasons have included concert tours of Europe, Japan, China, Australia, and New Zealand. The Quartet has appeared at Carnegie Hall in chamber performances and with orchestra and in 2006 gave the premiere of Takuma Itoh’s Concerto for Quartet and Orchestra in Carnegie Hall’s Isaac Stern Auditorium.
Performances at many of the most distinguished festivals and concert halls highlighted the Shanghai Quartet’s 25th anniversary season in 2008–09, including appearances at the Ravinia, Tanglewood, and Ottawa International Festivals, New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, and residencies at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival and the Oregon Bach Festival. November 2008 brought the world premiere of Penderecki’s String Quartet no. 3, Leaves From an Unwritten Diary, at a special concert in Poland honoring the composer’s 75th birthday, with the U.S. premieres at Montclair State and the University of Richmond, and further performances in Lithuania, France, and throughout the United States. The Quartet gave the premiere of Chen Yi’s From the Path of Beauty with Chanticleer in San Francisco, with the Asian premiere in China in May 2009.
The Quartet has a long history of championing new music and juxtaposing Eastern and Western sounds. Its 25th anniversary included world premieres from the three continents that comprise its artistic and cultural worlds: Penderecki’s String Quartet no. 3, Chen Yi’s From the Path of Beauty, jazz pianist Dick Hyman’s String Quartet, and String Quartet no. 2 by Vivian Fung. Among its other major commissions and premieres are works by Lowell Lieberman, Bright Sheng, and Zhou Long. In addition to the world premiere of Lei Liang’s Five Seasons at Montclair State, the tradition continues with forthcoming works from Marc Neikrug and Stewart Wallace in the coming seasons.
The Quartet has built an extensive discography that totals over 25 recordings on multiple labels. Recent releases include Schumann and Dvořák piano quintets with Rudolf Buchbinder and Zhou Long’s “Poems from Tang” for Quartet and Orchestra with the Singapore Symphony (BIS). In 2003, the Quartet released its most popular disc: a 24-track collection of Chinese folk songs titled Chinasong (Delos) featuring music arranged by Yi-Wen Jiang reflecting his childhood memories of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Current recording projects include the complete Beethoven string quartets (Camerata), a seven-disc project that was completed in November 2009.
The Shanghai Quartet has appeared in a diverse and interesting array of media projects, ranging from a cameo appearance in the Woody Allen film Melinda and Melinda playing Bartok’s String Quartet no. 4 (and the film’s soundtrack recording) to PBS’s Great Performances series for television. Other film credits include an appearance by violinist Weigang Li in the documentary From Mao to Mozart: Isaac Stern in China, and the family of cellist Nicholas Tzavaras as the subject of the 1999 film Music of the Heart starring Meryl Streep.
performances and special events
