MUSIC

Considered "simply the best there is" by The Boston Globe, the Borromeo String Quartet is one of the most sought-after string quartets in the world, each season performing more than one hundred concerts of classical and contemporary literature across three continents.

The program will open with a Boston premiere of a String Quartet written for the Borromeo Quartet by composer and NEC alumnus Mohammed Fairouz. This work, Chorale Fantasy is in the form of a chorale prelude and uses traditional counterpoint in the manner of Bach as well as singing styles from the middle east.

Oboist Elizabeth O'Neil will then join the Borromeo Quartet for Benjamin Britten's "Phantasy" Quartet. Benjamin Britten creates such a particular sound world - though the feeling for the listener is not of listening to a "modern" composition, the level of inventiveness of the sonorities is truly stunning.

Emely Phelps will join the Borromeo for Dvorak's Piano Quintet in A, Op. 81. The Borromeo will be joined by Ari Isaacman-Beck and Rhiannon Banerdt, Violins, Wenting Kang, Viola and Gwen Kronsick, Cello for Mendelssohn's Octet, Op. 20. Though these works have very different flavors, they both capture a mixture of exuberant virtuosity and emotional power that means they have been loved by generation upon generation of players and audiences, and indeed they define in no small way what we all come to think of as a masterpiece of chamber music.