On October 27, Pitt’s Music on the Edge will host the Naumburg award-winning Peabody Trio with renowned singer John Shirley-Quirk in a concert that features music by Zhou Long, Maurizio Kagel, Harold Meltzer, and Thierry De Mey. The trio will feature Shirley-Quirk as narrator in Meltzer’s Sindbad and will lean toward the theatrical for De Mey’s Musique de tables. The Peabody will give their innovative program on Saturday, October 27 at 8 p.m. in Pitt’s Bellefield Hall Auditorium. Tickets purchased in advance through ProArts are $10 for general admission and $5 for students and seniors, Call 412-394-3353 or visit www.proartstickets.org. Service fees apply. Tickets at the door are $15 and $10. Pitt students are admitted free.
In a time when more and more musicians seem to be specializing in a particular period, The Peabody Trio seems comfortable in any century. Since winning the prestigious Naumburg Chamber Music Award in 1989, The Peabody Trio has established itself as an important presence in the chamber music world as vivid interpreters of the classics of the repertoire, advocates for new music, and dedicated teachers and mentors to a generation of young musicians. Their 2004 recording of the Beethoven Opus 70 Trios on Artek, was praised by Strad Magazine as “some of the most accomplished Beethoven Trio playing heard in many a year.” Their reputation as champions of new music garnered them an invitation to the first Biennale for contemporary music, Tempus Fugit, in Tel Aviv.
The Peabody Trio gave its New York debut in 1990 at Alice Tully Hall and has since performed in the most important chamber music series in North America. Their tours include performances in New York, Washington, Chicago, Denver, Vancouver, Montreal, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego. Internationally, they tour frequently in England, making repeat appearances at London’s Wigmore Hall, and in Japan and Israel.
Like the Peabody Trio, John Shirley-Quirk has no qualms about tackling music from any era. While his repertoire reaches back to the Classical and the Baroque periods he has always had an active association with new music. His first operatic venture was in the first performance of Henze’s Elegy for Young Lovers, but he has since created roles in Tippett’s The Ice Break and in all of Britten’s last five operas, culminating in the virtuoso seven-fold role of the Traveller in Death in Venice, which was composed expressly for him. Operatic engagements include performances for the Royal Opera, Covent Garden, English Opera Group, Scottish Opera, and all the leading European and American houses.
One of Britain’s leading musicians and one of the most recorded artists in the world of concert and opera, John Shirley-Quirk is admired particularly for his performances of the vocal-orchestral repertoire. He has performed with most of the leading conductors, including Claudio Abbado, Carlo Maria Giulini, Georg Solti, Mstislav Rostropovich, Bernard Haitink, André Previn, Seiji Ozawa, and most of the major orchestras — including those of Amsterdam, Berlin, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, New York, London, Paris, Philadelphia, and Vienna. His discography encompasses well over 100 recordings on every major international label.
John Shirley-Quirk has received numerous awards and appointments, including the CBE, honorary doctorates from Liverpool and Brunel universities, Honorary Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music, and many Grammy Awards.
Codirected by Pitt faculty composers Eric Moe and Mathew Rosenblum, the series is devoted to the performance of contemporary music by outstanding artists.