Classical music: The Ancora String Quartet opens its new season this coming Saturday night with a program of Mendelssohn, Dohnanyi and Hugo Wolf.

By Jacob Stockinger

The Ancora String Quartet will open its new season this coming Saturday night, Sept. 19, at 7:30 p.m. in the Landmark Auditorium of the First Unitarian Society of Madison, 900 University Bay Drive. The historic building was designed by famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright.

Tickets can be purchased at the door: $15 for general admission, $12 for seniors and students; and $6 for children under 12.

The ASQ will welcome back first violinist Leanne League for its 15th Season.

Members of the quartet (below in a photo by Barry Lewis) are violinists Robin Ryan (left) and Leanne Kelso League (right), violist Marika Fischer Hoyt (top center) and cellist Benjamin Whitcomb (bottom center).

Members of the Ancora String Quartet play in other groups such as the Madison Symphony Orchestra and the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra. Whitcomb teaches at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater.

The fall program by the critically acclaimed quartet opens with the luminous and spirited Quartet, Op. 44, No. 3, by Felix Mendelssohn, followed by the darkly impassioned 2nd quartet of Ernő Dohnányi. The storm clouds are dispersed with the program closer, the sunny “Italian Serenade” by Hugo Wolf. (The “Italian Serenade” can be heard in a YouTube video at bottom.)

A champagne reception will close the evening.

Also of interest: The Ancora Quartet will also team up again with the Madison Symphony Orchestra’s Rhapsodie Quartet for a reprise of their performance a few years ago of the Octet by Felix Mendelssohn. The performance will be on Friday, Oct. 9, at the Fort Atkinson Club. For more information, visit: http://www.fortatkinsonclub.org/

 

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Posted in Classical music
Tags: Ancora String Quartet, Arts, Cello, Chamber music, champagne, Classical music, classics, Erno Dohnanyi, Felix Mendelssohn, First Unitarian Society of Madison, Frank Lloyd Wright, Hugo Wolf, Italian Serenade, Jacob Stockinger, Madison, Madison Symphony Orchestra, Mendelssohn, Music, Octet, Orchestra, reception, String quartet, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Violin, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, YouTube