DaPonte String Quartet

Not long after forming in Philadelphia 31 years ago, the DaPonte String Quartet surprised the musical world by moving from a cosmopolitan urban area to rural Maine. The DSQ had been — and continues to be — sought after to perform and teach all over the U.S. and around the world. They have appeared in France, Scotland, Canada, and more than twenty American states. Their performances have been broadcast over nation-wide radio and television programs in both the United States and Canada. They have received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Philadelphia Musical Fund Society, the Music Teachers National Association, Chamber Music America, and have participated in several of the nation’s most prestigious concert series to rave reviews. Musicians and critics alike wondered, why would the DSQ move to Maine, where, as the New York Times noted, they create an experience “like watching the Celtics play in the local gym.”

But the members of the DaPonte String Quartet were proud to call Maine home, and their relationship with mid-coast Maine remains a deeply rooted one. When CBS Sunday Morning nationally televised a profile of the group, the idea of living outside a major urban center suddenly appeared to be an appealing alternative lifestyle few musicians had considered. Few string quartets can boast such a devoted following. The people of Maine warmly embraced the DSQ, which has become an integral part of the state’s musical life. When the Quartet debuted at Carnegie Hall, a large contingent of their fans traveled to New York to hear and cheer them there. The Times wrote in amazement: “Let it not be said that the DaPonte String Quartet enters New York musical life without friends. Weill Hall was packed!” The state’s embrace of the DSQ has also taken the form of awards from the Maine Arts Commission.

This support enables the DSQ to perform a wide-ranging and varied repertoire. While many classical musicians struggling with the realities of the contemporary musical marketplace find themselves performing exclusively new compositions, the Quartet’s repertoire spans the entire history of music, from seventeenth-century works on original instruments to cutting-edge contemporary quartets, like the one written for them by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer David Del Tredici. The DSQ is also known for their inventive interpretations of the works they play. The Boston Globe observed that whatever music they present — be it Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic, Modern, or Post-Modern — the freshness of the DSQ’s performances make these works appear novel and contemporary: “Once again, the music could have been hot off the presses.” Their performances affirm chamber music as a vital and alive art form.

Fresh conception requires original thought, and the DSQ’s is based on solid research, extensive scholarship, and meticulous preparation. Strings Magazine recently remarked on the inclusion of British composer Thomas Ades’s quartet Arcadiana in the DSQ’s repertoire, noting that few groups would find themselves able to invest the hundreds of hours of preparation required for music of such complexity. This sort of groundwork gives their performances authority, but an authority that isn’t stiff or aloof. Their concerts are dynamic and their stage manner — with one another and with their audiences — is warm and conversational. The Quartet members regularly share musical insights with their audiences before playing and these “spoken program notes” enable the listener to enter into a deeper connection with the music.

The DaPonte String Quartet is now in season 31 and its members are still proud to call Maine home.

The DaPonte Quartet is joined by violist Marcus Thompson and cellist Scott Kluksdahl in a delightful evening dedicated to the two gorgeous sextets of Johannes Brahms.

Marcus Thompson, Violist
Marcus Thompson has appeared as viola soloist, recitalist and chamber
music player in series throughout the Americas, Europe and the Far East.
He was featured as soloist with the Symphony Orchestras of Atlanta,
Chicago, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Saint Louis, and the Czech National
Symphony. He has recorded the Bartok Viola Concerto and the Bloch
Suite with the Slovenian Radio Symphony and the Tibor Serly Concerto,
Jongen Suite and Francaix Rhapsodie with the Czech National Symphony,
both conducted by Paul Freeman. Mr. Thompson has received critical
acclaim for performances of the John Harbison Viola Concerto with the
Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and with the Chicago Sinfonietta, and for
performances of the Penderecki Viola Concerto in Boston and London. His
solo repertoire includes the recent, Ligeti, Overton, Schnittke, as well as
the exotic with works by Ariosti, Vivaldi and Hindemith performed on the
viola d’amore. He has been a guest of the Audubon, Borromeo, Cleveland,
Emerson, Jupiter, Muir, Orion, Shanghai, and Miami String Quartets, the
Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center; and a frequent participant in
chamber music festivals in Amsterdam, Anchorage, Dubrovnik, Montreal,
Seattle, Sitka, Los Angeles, Okinawa, Portland and Vail. Mr. Thompson,
who is a member of the Boston Chamber Music Society, earned the
doctorate degree at The Juilliard School following studies with Walter
Trampler. He is an alumnus of Young Concert Artists, Inc. Born and raised
in The Bronx, N.Y.C., he currently lives in Boston where, as the Robert R.
Taylor Professor of Music and a Margaret MacVicar Faculty Fellow, he
founded and leads programs in chamber music and performance study at
MIT, and serves on the viola faculty at New England Conservatory of
Music.

Cellist Scott Kluksdahl has performed for nearly four decades as chamber musician, recitalist and soloist in the United States, Europe, Israel, and Central and South America.

Following a daring New York debut program of cutting-edge modern works at Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall, Strings Magazine identified Scott Kluksdahl as “a simply superb cellist, playing with consummate technical ease, a beautiful sound, total conviction, authority and dedication to the music.”  Scott Kluksdahl’s devotion to the works of current composers is widely regarded, and he is known for his close affiliations with Nicolas Bacri, Richard Brodhead, David Del Tredici, Robert Helps, Gunther Schuller, Augusta Read Thomas and Richard Wernick, whose works he has commissioned, studied, and recorded.  He has also collaborated with Benjamin C.S. Boyle, Tamar Diesendruck, Philip Lasser, Eric Moe, Laura Elise Schwendinger and Scott Wheeler, and he has worked closely with American legends Leonard Bernstein, Elliott Carter, Andrew Inbrie, Donald Martino, and Ralph Shapey.  As cello soloist with the Boston Pops Orchestra, Kluksdahl premiered Philip Lasser’s Vocalise for Cello and Orchestra at Symphony Hall, and he has made acclaimed recordings of many of these composers’ works on the CRI, Centaur, Triton, Pierian, Nimbus, Crystal, and Albany labels.

Scott Kluksdahl presented his solo debut with the San Francisco Symphony, and since then he has performed a broad gamut of his instrument’s repertory throughout the entire United States and in the major musical centers of New York City, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, San Francisco and Washington, D.C.   Kluksdahl has been heard in Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, Merkin Concert Hall, Kennedy Center, BargeMusic, Dame Myra Hess Series, Phillips Collection and Tanglewood Music Festival, and continues to perform the complete cycle of Bach Suites for cello, notably at the Oregon and Philadelphia Bach Festivals.  He has been a frequent a guest chamber artist at the Martha’s Vineyard Chamber Music Society, Music from Salem, Killington Music Festival, Craftsbury Chamber Players, Lancaster Music Festival, and Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music.  Scott Kluksdahl was a founding member of the Lions Gate Trio for two decades.  He also performed as cellist of the Veronika String Quartet, and he has been a guest artist with numerous ensembles including DaPonte, Miami and Pacifica String Quartets.

Scott Kluksdahl serves as Professor of Cello at the University of South Florida, where he is a designated Theodore and Venette Askounes-Ashford Distinguished Scholar, and he has presented master classes in such institutions as Eastman School of Music, Indiana University, Boston Conservatory, Northwestern University, and San Francisco Conservatory of Music.  He teaches summers at the Brancaleoni International and the ARIA International Summer Festivals, as well as at the Cello Seminar at the Brown Farm in Salem, New York.