Vermeer Quartet to perform special concert

by Mark McGowan

NIU's legendary Vermeer Quartet will perform Haydn's "The Seven Last Words of Christ" during a special concert Tuesday. Members of the quartet, who also released a compact disc featuring the work and have performed it for millions of listeners around the world, will appear with Martin Marty, professor emeritus at the University of Chicago, and the Rev. Leroy Mitchell, director of NIU's CHANCE program.

Vermeer Quartet

Marty also will lead an informal, public discussion with faculty and students at 3:30 p.m. in the Heritage Room of the Holmes Student Center. Immediately before the concert, Vermeer Quartet members Marc Johnson and Richard Young will give a 7:15 p.m. lecture in the Boutell Memorial Concert Hall, where they will perform at 8 p.m.

Admission is free, and the Music Building is accessible to all. For more information, call (815) 753-1546.

The concert will bring to the Vermeer's home "an experience unlike any other," according to the American Record Guide. "The performance was magnificent: majestic in style, technically without flaw and utterly persuasive," wrote Australia's The Age.

"This is music-making which reveals much of the inner-self," praised Germany's Suddeutsche Zeitung, "music-making of untamed necessity that goes far beyond that which is merely pleasing to the ear."

Since the first radio broadcast of the piece in 1988, more than 100 different speakers have collaborated with the Vermeer, including some of the most renowned religious figures of modern time. The Grammy-nominated CD includes spoken introductions by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., evangelist Billy Graham, Father Raymond Brown and Marty, among many others.

Copies of the CD will be available for sale in the lobby.

"It is difficult to imagine a more appropriate group of theologians and preachers for the Vermeer's Seven Last Words of Christ recording," said the Rev. Theodore Hesburgh, president emeritus of the University of Notre Dame. "The makeup of this group suggests not only a certain moral authority, but a spirit of inclusiveness. At the same time, in a most personal and effective manner, it reflects our religious and social diversity."