Haverford, PA— On Sunday,
March 20, 2005 at 4 p.m., the FOUR HORIZONS Quartet will present
an afternoon of chamber music at Haverford College featuring
Messiaen’s “Quartet for the End of Time,”
Ingrid Arauco’s “Fantasy-Quartet,”
and Erwin Schulhoff’s “Duo for Violin and
Cello.” Gerald Levinson will give a pre-concert
talk at 3:30 p.m. Sponsored by the John B. Hurford Humanities
Center, this event will be held in Roberts Hall, Marshall
Auditorium on the Haverford College Campus, 370 Lancaster
Avenue, in Haverford. The performance is free and open to
the public, the auditorium is wheelchair accessible and parking
is free. For more information call 610.896.1011.
Four Horizons
is an ensemble based on the unusual instrumentation of Messiaen’s
Quartet for the End of Time with Charles Abramovic,
piano; Allison Herz, clarinet; Karen Bentley Pollick, violin;
Michal Schmidt, cello. The group specializes in contemporary
music, with special emphasis on new American music, and performs
works not only for the full ensemble but trios, duos, and
solos as well.
Four Horizons
Quartet
Charles Abramovic is
a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, the Peabody Conservatory,
and received his DMA degree from Temple University. He has
won critical acclaim for his international performances as
a soloist, chamber musician and collaborator with leading
instrumentalists and singers. As a solo recitalist he has
performed throughout the United States as well as in France
and Yugoslavia. Appearing with artists such as Viktoria Mullova,
Robert McDuffie, Sarah Chang, Kim Kashkashian, and Jeffrey
Khaner, Mr. Abramovic has been heard in major concert halls
of the United States, Canada, Europe, and Asia. Actively involved
with contemporary music, he has recorded works of Milton Babbitt,
Joseph Schwantner, Gerald Levinson, Tina Davidson, and Gunther
Schuller. Mr. Abramovic currently resides in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania.
He is a Professor of Keyboard Studies at Temple University’s
Boyer College of Music and performs regularly with the Philadelphia
groups Davidsbund Chamber Players, Orchestra 2001, and Network
for New Music. In 1997 Mr. Abramovic received the career development
award from the Philadelphia Musical Fund Society.
Clarinetist Allison Herz
studied at Temple University (Bachelor of Arts in Musicology
and Performance) and the University of Pennsylvania (Master
of Arts in Musicology and Music Theory). Ms. Herz has long
been a champion of new music, and has performed with many
new music groups in Philadelphia and New York, including the
Penn Contemporary Players, the Philadelphia New Music Group,
the Orchestra of Our Time, Relache, and Orchestra 2001, where
she has appeared as soloist several times. Philadelphia-area
composers who have written pieces for her include James McVoy,
Jay Reise, Joe Franklin and Larry Nelson, and she has given
many premiere performances of new works. Ms. Herz also plays
in the Philadelphia Classical Symphony and the Opera Company
of Philadelphia Orchestra, and teaches at Swarthmore and Haverford
Colleges, the Darlington Fine Arts Center, and the Community
College of Philadelphia.
Karen Bentley Pollick.
graduated from Indiana University in 1987 with a Masters of
Music degree in Violin Performanc. Since then she has pursued
a unique career as a violinist, violist, conductor and pianist
She has concertized as soloist throughout the capitals of
Europe, Asia, the United States, Canada, and Russia, and has
several recordings of original music including Electric Diamond,
Angel, Konzerto and Succubus, Ariel View, and Dancing Suite
to Suite. Ms. Pollick regularly concertizes with pianist Dmitriy
Cogan, with whom she has collaborated for 17 years. She also
collaborates with percussionist Ian Dogole of Global Fusion
Music in a variety of musical styles. A champion of contemporary
music, she has premiered compositions for violin and piano,
solo violin, and violin with electronics. Ms. Pollick has
toured with the New York Philharmonic, Mikhail Baryshnikov’s
White Oak Dance Project, the Bolshoi Ballet, Barbra Streisand
and has performed in the New Mexico and Seattle Symphonies.
She is currently the violinist in Paul Dresher’s Electro-Acoustic
Band.
Born in Israel, Michal
Schmidt studied at the Tel Aviv University in Israel.
Following studies at the Royal Academy of Music in London,
she came to the United States in 1979 to study at the Curtis
Institute of Music in Philadelphia. She received her Master
Degree at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia and is
the winner of numerous prizes and awards, including ones from
the American Israeli Cultural Foundations, the Israeli Arts
Council, the Royal Academy of Music in London, the Josef Hoffman
Competition, the Jean Frederick Perrenoud Competition in Vienna.
Ms. Schmidt has taught at the Pennsylvania Conservatory, the
Berman School of Music as well as coaching chamber music at
Haverford College. She has performed as soloist, with chamber
music groups and has been broadcast of several radio stations.
She has also worked with the Composers Guild of the University
of Pennsylvania, Relache Contemporary Music Ensemble, The
Hildegard Players (a group dedicated to the performance of
women composers, past and present) and the Network for New
Music in Philadelphia.
Gerald Levinson,
Professor of Music at Swarthmore College, was a student of
Messiaen's in Paris and is uniquely qualified to address the
compositional problem presented by the work and its place
in the composer's artistic and spiritual life.
