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Contact: Mark McGowan, NIU Office of Public Affairs
(815) 753-9472

December 11, 2003

NIU’s Vermeer Quartet earns Grammy nomination
for recording of Russian piano quintets

DeKalb — Members of the world-acclaimed Vermeer Quartet and noted pianist Boris Berman completed recordings of piano quintets by Russian composers Shostakovich and Schnittke in December of 2000.

Released in 2002, the disc now is nominated for a Grammy in the Best Chamber Music Performance category. It is the second chance at Grammy honors for the Vermeer, earlier nominated for its 1994 recording of Haydn’s “The Seven Last Words of Christ.”

The Grammy Awards are televised Sunday, Feb. 8, on CBS.

“We just found out,” laughed Richard Young, violist with the quartet which has been part of the resident artist faculty of the Northern Illinois University School of Music since 1970.

“The nominations have been out for a while, and nobody called us. We didn’t know. A friend of mine had to call and tell me,” he added. “Frankly, we didn’t expect it, but it’s a nice acknowledgement of not only the work we did on these two pieces but also of our work in general.”

Members of the Vermeer – Young, violinists Shmuel Ashkenasi and Mathias Tacke and cellist Marc Johnson – know Berman through the Yale Summer Chamber Music Festival at Norfolk, Conn., where both have taught and performed. Berman, a native of Russia who trained at the Moscow Conservatory, teaches at Yale.

“When we first played together at Norfolk, we all enjoyed it so much that we knew it would be thrilling to record together. Boris is a super pianist and an unusually insightful musician whose Russian heritage helps to explain his special affinity for this repertoire,” Young said. “But it’s his unique sense of humor that we’ll always remember when we think back to our first rehearsals together – which is rather ironic considering the very serious nature of the two compositions on this CD.”

Berman, who has appeared in more than 30 countries on six continents, has performed as a solo recitalist and as a soloist with symphonies, including the Moscow Philharmonic and the Moscow Chamber Orchestra. His many recordings include a recital of Shostakovich piano works, which won the 1990 Edison Classic Award in Holland.

He appeared at NIU with the Vermeer Quartet for a concert in February of 2000, where they performed the Shostakovich.

“Shostakovich and Schnittke are the two most important Russian composers of the last century, and each one wrote only one piano quintet. Shostakovich wrote 15 string quartets, and Schnittke wrote a number of string quartets, but each only wrote one piano quintet,” Young said.

“There are not very many first-rate works for string quartet with piano. Brahms, Schumann, Dvorak – they’re played all the time. So we’ve welcomed opportunities to play other piano quintets by composers such as Bridge and Dohnanyi,” he added. “But the two works on this CD are in a very special class. The Shostakovich is already considered an important part of the ‘standard’ repertoire, though it’s been around for only 60 years or so. The Schnittke is much more recent, and it may take time for it to be similarly embraced by the public. There’s no doubt, though, that these are the two more important piano quintets of this past century, and every time we play them is a profoundly moving experience.”

Formed in 1969 at Marlboro, the Vermeer has performed since at virtually all of the most prestigious festivals, including Tanglewood, Aldeburgh, Norfolk, Aspen, Mostly Mozart, Lucerne, Flanders, Bath, South Bank, Schleswig-Holstein, Orlando, Albuquerque, Stresa, Berlin, Ravinia, Spoleto, Santa Fe, Edinburgh, Great Woods and the Casals Festival.

The Vermeer’s members – originally from Israel, Germany, New York and Nebraska, providing a unique blend of musical and cultural backgrounds – are Fellows of the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, England, where they have presented annual master classes since 1978. They have been the resident string quartet for Performing Arts Chicago since 1984. Their numerous recordings include the entire Beethoven cycle along with works by Schubert, Dvorak, Mendelssohn, Verdi, Brahms, Haydn and Tchaikovsky.

In 2000, the quartet was named Outstanding Studio Teachers by the Illinois chapter of the American String Teachers Association, based on their commitment to fine teaching, high standards of musicianship and community involvement.

Earlier this year, the quartet stirred justices of the U.S. Supreme Court with a May 22 command performance in the Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C.

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