Vilar welcomes Takacs Quartet

BEAVER CREEK — The Vilar Performing Arts Center invites classical music lovers to experience the world-renowned string ensemble Takacs Quartet today at 6:30 p.m.

Recognized as one of the world’s great ensembles, Takacs Quartet plays with a unique blend of drama, warmth and humor, combining four distinct musical personalities to bring fresh insights to string-quartet repertoire.

Takacs became the first string quartet to win the Wigmore Hall Medal in May 2014. The medal recognizes major international artists who have a strong association with the hall. Recipients include Andras Schiff, Thomas Quasthoff, Menachem Pressler and Dame Felicity Lott. During their 2016-17 season, the ensemble will perform complete six-concert Beethoven quartet cycles at the Wigmore Hall, Princeton, University of Michigan and University of California Berkeley.

In 2012, Gramophone announced that Takacs was the only string quartet to be inducted into its first Hall of Fame, along with such legendary artists as Jascha Heifetz, Leonard Bernstein and Dame Janet Baker. The ensemble also won the 2011 Award for Chamber Music and Song, presented by the Royal Philharmonic Society in London.

The members of Takacs Quartet are Christoffersen Faculty Fellows at the University of Colorado Boulder. The quartet has helped to develop a string program with a special emphasis on chamber music. The quartet’s commitment to teaching is enhanced by summer residencies at the Aspen Festival and as visiting fellows at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London.