CELEBRITY SERIES OF BOSTON PRESENTS
TAKÁCS QUARTET
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 9 AT NEC’s JORDAN HALL

 (BOSTON)—Celebrity Series of Boston, Martha H. Jones, President and Executive Director, presents the

Takács Quartet on Sunday, December 9 at 3:00 p.m. at NEC’s Jordan Hall, 30 Gainsborough Street, Boston. The evening’s program includes string quartets by Haydn, Bartók, and Brahms, full program information is listed below. This performance is made possible in part by the Celebrity Series Friends of Chamber Music.

The Takács Quartet made its Celebrity Series debut in 2000.This marks the fifth Series appearance for the Quartet who last appeared in Boston presented by the Celebrity Series in 2005.

The Grammy Award-winning Takács Quartet is recognized as one of the world’s leading string quartets. Formed at the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest in 1975, the Quartet first received international attention in 1977, winning First Prize and the Critics’ Prize at the International String Quartet Competition in Evian, France. The Quartet has performed throughout North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia, and at the Aspen, Berlin, Mostly Mozart, Ravinia, Salzburg, and Tanglewood music festivals. Among the honors bestowed on the group are the Gold Medal at the Portsmouth and Bordeaux Competitions, and First Prizes at the Budapest International String Quartet Competition and the Bratislava Competition. In 2001, the Quartet was awarded the Order of Merit of the Knight’s Cross by the Republic of Hungary. The Takács Quartet has served as the resident ensemble at the University of Colorado since 1983. The Quartet has recently added to its extensive discography with a recording of Schubert’s ‘Death and the Maiden’ (D810) and ‘Rosamunde’ (D804), which was released in 2006 on the Hyperion label. In November 2007, Hyperion will also release a disc featuring the Brahms’ Piano Quintet with The Takács and pianist Stephen Hough. The Quartet continues to garner accolades for its series of recordings of the complete Beethoven String Quartet cycle on the Decca label. The first recording—which included the composer’s three ‘Razumovsky’ String Quartets, Op. 59, and Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 74, ‘Harp’—won the Grammy Award for Best Chamber Performance in 2002. The Quartet’s other recordings on the Decca label include music by Bartók, Borodin, Brahms, Chausson, Dvořák, Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, and Smetana.

PROGRAM INFORMATION

Sunday, December 9 at 3:00 PM
NEC’s Jordan Hall

TAKÁCS QUARTET

Haydn
String Quartet in C Major, Opus 74, No. 1, Hob. III 72

Bartók
String Quartet No. 5

Brahms
String Quartet in C minor, Opus. 51, no. 1

TICKETING INFORMATION
Remaining tickets, priced at $45, are available by calling CelebrityCharge at (617) 482-6661 Monday-Friday 10:00 a.m.-4:00 p.m., online at www.celebrityseries.org, or at the Jordan Hall box office, 30 Gainsborough Street, Boston.

About Celebrity Series of Boston
Celebrity Series of Boston is New England's leading presenter of music, dance, and the performing arts from around the world. Founded in 1938, the Series incorporated as a not-for-profit corporation in 1989. Each year, the Celebrity Series brings to Boston's major concert halls performances by instrumental and vocal soloists, symphony orchestras, chamber ensembles, dance companies, jazz and popular music performers, folk and ethnic performance groups, and other performing artists. The Celebrity Series' Arts, Education and Community program was initiated in 1984. The program reaches thousands of students annually in Boston area schools and communities. The program includes the award-winning AileyCamp Boston, a six-week summer dance program for Boston middle school students, and ACT 2, an after-school initiative for former participants of AileyCamp Boston. For more information on Celebrity Series of Boston, call (617) 482-2595 or visit us online at www.celebrityseries.org.

The Celebrity Series receives major annual support from two anonymous donors; The Little Family Foundation; The Susanne Marcus Collins Foundation; Bank of America; The Linde Family Foundation; Tufts Health Plan; Talbots Charitable Foundation; Foley & Lardner LLP; Charlesbank Capital Partners; Comcast; Morgan Stanley; BDO Seidman; PTC; Pierre and Maria-Gaetana Matisse Foundation; Steven and Joan Belkin Foundation; Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center; The Consulate General of Canada; The Collings Foundation; The Esther B. Kahn Charitable Foundation; The Red Sox Foundation; Massachusetts Cultural Council; National Endowment for the Arts; New England Foundation for the Arts; Catherine and Paul Buttenwieser Foundation; The Harris A. Berman and Ruth E. Nemzoff Family Foundation; Amy and Joshua Boger; DeMoulas Foundation; Margaret Eagle and Eli Rapaport; Kathleen and Steven Haley; Cerise and Charles Jacobs; Paul L. King; Jann E. Leeming and Arthur D. Little; Paul F. and Barbara A. Levy; Frank and Eleanor Pao; Spring Sirkin and Arthur Frank; Dorothy and Stephen Weber; Nancy Richmond Winsten and Dr. Joseph Winsten; Charles O. Wood, III and Miriam M. Wood; Ellen and Arnold Zetcher.

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