Juilliard String Quartet violist to perform with UW-Madison’s Pro Arte Quartet

Samuel Rhodes, who has been the violist in the Juilliard String Quartet since 1969, will perform with the Pro Arte Quartet for the Faculty Concert Series at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, April 6, in Mills Hall.

The program will feature two viola quintets — works for two violins, two violas and cello — by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Admission is free.

Rhodes is a consummate artist, acclaimed as recitalist, soloist with orchestra, composer and teacher, as well as for his long tenure with the Juilliard Quartet. He has performed the world premieres of works by Donald Martino, Milton Babbitt and Elliott Carter and organized and performed in New York recitals commemorating the 90th and 100th anniversaries of the birth of composer Paul Hindemith.

He serves as chair of the viola faculty at the Juilliard School, where he has taught since he joined the quartet, and he is a faculty member at the Tanglewood Music Center. Rhodes’s string quintet has been performed and recorded by the Pro Arte Quartet (with the composer as guest).

As a member of the Juilliard String Quartet, Rhodes has toured throughout Europe, North and South America, the Near East, Asia, Australia and New Zealand. The quartet has commissioned and performed the world premieres of works by Milton Babbitt, Elliott Carter, Mario Davidovsky, Henri Dutilleux, Alberto Ginastera, John Harbison and many others. It has recorded an extensive catalog of the string quartet literature on CBS Masterworks, Sony Classical, Wergo and CRI labels, winning three Grammy awards for the Debussy and Ravel quartets, the complete Schoenberg quartets and the complete Beethoven quartets.

The Pro Arte Quartet will begin its program in Mills Hall with the “String Quartet in D minor,” Op. 76, No. 2 (“Quinten”) by Haydn, originally scheduled for its concert on February 12 that was canceled due to illness. The remainder of the program, with Rhodes, features the viola quintets in E-flat major and D major by Mozart.

The Pro Arte Quartet will celebrate its centennial next season, performing the world premieres of works it has commissioned from Walter Mays, Paul Schoenfield, William Bolcom and John Harbison. For more information about the centennial, visit http://proartequartet.org. To review a complete concert calendar at the School of Music, visit http://music.wisc.edu/calendar.