Saturday, January 25, 2025 @ 3:30pm – 5:30pm (EST)
Smithsonian National Museum of American History, Washington, DC, United States
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$36 ($32 member)

Smithsonian Chamber Music Society audiences are privy to the unparalleled experience of being able to hear two magnificent quartets of instruments—one made by Antonio Stradivari, the other by his teacher Nicoló Amati—in this popular concert series.

The Axelrod Quartet's violist James Dunham will retire at the end of this season after 17 years with the ensemble. In the first three programs, which explore the viola quintet repertoire, the quartet is joined by one of three different violists. Dunham has chosen the final quartet-only program to include some of the works he's most enjoyed playing over his long and distinguished career, which included membership in the Naumburg Award–winning Sequoia String Quartet and the Grammy Award–winning Cleveland quartet.

Kenneth Slowik, SCMS artistic director and recipient of the Smithsonian Distinguished Scholar Award, again curates a series of pre-concert talks one hour prior to each concert, shedding light on the glorious music and the lives and times of the featured composers.

About Axelrod String Quartet

The Axelrod String Quartet—Marc Destrubé and Marilyn McDonald, violins; James Dunham, viola; Kenneth Slowik, cello—came into being in 1998 when Herbert and Evelyn Axelrod established a generous endowment to perpetuate string quartet performances at the Smithsonian Museum using the quartets of instruments by master luthiers Antonio Stradivari, Nicoló Amati, and Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume which they had donated to the institute. But, since beginning with the time of Haydn, the string quartet has been a central formation of chamber music, a resident string quartet had already figured prominently in SCMS programming from 1982, when the Smithson String Quartet (Jaap Schröder and Marilyn McDonald, violins; Judson Griffin, viola; Kenneth Slowik, cello) was founded. That ensemble existed—with Jorrie Garrigue and David Cerutti replacing McDonald and Griffin late in its career—for fourteen years. It was succeeded by a somewhat ad hoc quartet called Party of Four (the immediate predecessor to the Axelrod Quartet), whose lower end was anchored by Slowik and violists Steven Dann and Douglas McNabney while a succession of players—Mayumi Seiler, Malcolm Lowe, Ian Swensen, and Catherine Manson—rotated between the violin chairs.

Central to the philosophy of each of these quartets has been the presence of gut strings, which were in regular use until at least several decades into the 20th century. This set-up, and the incorporation of other elements of the historical performance practices of a succession of periods from the High Classical through the early 20th Century, has made elegance, clarity, and stylistic freshness hallmarks of SCMS quartet playing for nearly thirty years.

https://www.smithsonianchambermusic.org/about/ensembles/axelrod-string-quartet

About Marc Destrubé, violin

Canadian violinist Marc Destrubé is first violinist with the Axelrod String Quartet, quartet-in-residence at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C., where the quartet plays on the museum's collection of period instruments. Among his many performances and artistic endeavors, he serves as artistic director of the Pacific Baroque Festival in Victoria, Canada.

http://www.marcdestrube.com/

Smithsonian National Museum of American History

1300 Constitution Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20560
United States

https://americanhistory.si.edu/