Pacifica Quartet

Throwback Thursday — Back to Beethoven… Forward to April 🎻
For this , we celebrate the 200th anniversary of the premiere of Beethoven’s radical Große Fuge (Grand Fugue), Op. 133—a work that shocked its first audiences and still sounds daring today—and we look ahead to April, when we bring this boundary-breaking masterpiece to NYC at the 92nd Street Y as well as with Washington Performing Arts in DC as part of our Revolutionary Portraits project.

When it debuted, listeners didn’t quite know what to make of it. Bold, complex, and unapologetically intense, the Große Fuge pushed the limits of what a string quartet could be. Nearly two centuries later, it continues to challenge performers and electrify audiences.

Here is our live performance, recorded at Auer Hall, Indiana University:

Simin Ganatra, violin
Austin Hartman, violin
Mark Holloway, viola
Brandon Vamos, cello

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Pacifica Quartet Simin Ganatra Austin Hartman Mark Holloway Brandon Vamos MKI Artists Indiana University Jacobs School of Music Cedille Records

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Tuning up in a very cold Cincinnati ❄️

We’re excited for a concert this afternoon with our dear friend and clarinetist extraordinaire Anthony McGill We’ll be playing music from our Grammy-nominated album American Stories, with works by Richard Danielpour, Valerie Coleman, James Lee III — a repertoire we love returning to and especially enjoy sharing with Anthony. If you’re braving the cold and joining us, we can’t wait to see you. Stay warm out there!

Simin Ganatra
Austin Hartman
Brandon Vamos
Mark Holloway
Cedille Records
MKI Artists
Indiana University Jacobs School of Music
Linton Chamber Music