The Escher Quartet is a young group of serious musicians who proved they are amongst the front ranks of quartet players. Read More...— Stephen Kaye,
The Millbrook Independent
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The Escher String Quartet played with passionate elegance and deep feeling... Read More...— Zachary Woolfe,
New York Times
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Rich, organlike sonority from the four sounding together, accompanied by powerful tension in crescendos and at other critical spots in the structure, gave great intensity to much of the evening’s music... Read More...— David Bratman,
San Francisco Classical Voice
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Escher [Quartet] made clear that it is now one of the top young quartets before the public today...This is a group to watch. Read More...— Robert Battey,
Washington Post
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The programs, which place each of Britten’s three string quartets into context, were designed by the members of the Escher String Quartet with the same penetrating intelligence and curiosity that informs their playing. Read More...— Corinna da Fonesca-Wollheim,
New York Times
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But what made the performance so arresting was the quartet's ability to fuse the music's separate strands into a coherent expressive statement, while still retaining their distinctive characters...Friday's performance found the ensemble at its considerable finest. Read More...— Joshua Kosman,
San Francisco Chronicle
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The Perth Festival's Brahms Chamber Weekend on February 17–19 ran like a German Romantic feast with side servings of Webern and Brett Dean. And the master chefs behind it? The USA’s crackerjack Escher quartet. Read More...
— Ilario Colli,
Limelight Magazine
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Certainly, the latter qualities are abundantly evident in the String Quartet opus 67 much of which, in the hands of the visiting Escher Quartet, came across pulsing with vitality - and the tricky, quirky rhythms of the third movement were negotiated with delightful adroitness and buoyancy. Read More...— Neville Cohn,
The West Australian
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These four performers are definitively a cohesive team, evident in the seamless playing and interaction between each other on stage. Read More...
— Anna Locke,
www.australianstage.com
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One of the requirements of being a performing artist is the ability to react positively to unexpected situations. So it was that Adam Barnett-Hart, leader of the Escher Quartet, developed a nosebleed at the end of the first movement of Bartók’s Fifth String Quartet, and had to leave the stage for several minutes in order to recover. His colleagues soon joined him in the green room and then re-grouped to complete this BBC Radio 3 Lunchtime Concert, stopping between movements for Barnett-Hart to stem the still-flowing blood. Read More...
— Ben Hogwood,
www.classicalsource.com
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And the Escher quartet is excellent...the group was polished and rhythmically vibrant, lively without being rough, light yet present in two Mendelssohn works and ever so slightly stouter and more intense in two by Schumann. Read More...
— Zachary Woolfe,
New York Times
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Put simply, this group has all the qualities necessary to be the next Emerson or Juilliard Quartet: total focus, unflagging energy, bottomless technique and, perhaps most important, rare musical insight and a profound level of cohesion.
Read More...— Kyle MacMillan,
Denver Post
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Here and earlier in the program the fine musicianship of the Escher members resulted in cohesive, spirited ensemble playing. Read More...— Vivien Schweitzer,
New York Times
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They [the Escher Quartet] brought similar cohesion, sensitivity and an earthy richness to performances of Barber's haunting Dover Beach, Wolf's Italian Serenade and Alban Berg's Lyric Suite.
— Brian Wise,
Strad Magazine
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The youthful ensemble displayed a strong sense of drive, feel for lines both lyrical and urgent, dynamics, depth of interpretation, artistic phrasing, and impressive and evenly distributed technique and rich sound. All that, plus a delightful stage presence that reflected the freshness of youth... Read More...— John Shulson,
Virginia Gazette
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The members have an unusual affinity for fitting together, picture perfect.
Read More...— Jan Stribula,
Connecticut Post
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The Escher Quartet impressed again in a late-night concert, tackling the Everest of Beethoven's Op. 132 with fire and sensitivity. Read More...— Keith Clarke,
Musical America
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The Escher Quartet has the full measure of the contemporary string quartet idiom, whether it’s grinding out fortissimo double- and triple-stops or producing eerie yet diaphanous harmonics. Read More...— Lee Passarella,
Audiophile Audition
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The ensemble offered a passionate rendition, conveying the full spectrum of grief and turbulence in this 40-minute work of Wagnerian proportions. Each member of the group played with a glowing tone and insightful musicianship, resulting in a characterful whole. Read More...— Vivien Schweitzer,
New York Times
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And the performances -- of works by Beethoven, Schubert and Shostakovich -- were just as remarkable, executed with the precision of a surgical operation, the athleticism of a choreographed knife fight from an action film. Read More...— Chris Waddington,
Time Picayune
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There was certainly nothing uncivilized about the assured performance of the Escher quartet (founded in 2005), three of whose players stood and seemed entirely at ease on their feet. The individual and sometimes concertolike playing of the four young musicians was notable for its polish and tonal beauty.
Read More...— Vivien Schweitzer,
New York Times
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"Make no mistake, though, this is an immensely talented ensemble. Each of these players is strong in his (or her) own right and could, it seems, make it as a soloist. Together, they're tightly in sync rhythmically, make a generous, brilliant sound, and bring a lot of energy."
— Timothy Mangan,
The Orange County Register
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"Though they've only been playing together for two years, these performers have achieved the most unified sound that I've ever heard from a string quartet. It's a cool, emotionally restrained sound that impresses through its sheer precision and clarity."
— San Francisco Classical Voice
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"[The Escher's] sound is golden-ripe, and its performance was technically almost infallible, cool-edged, yet pulsing like the engine of a luxury car...the night's biggest pleasure."
— San Jose Mercury News
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"Finely honed technique and a focused ensemble blend are this group's strong suits...a dark ambrosial brew all its own."
— Boston Globe
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"The group combined ripe tonal balances with the kind of heedless intensity that comes with youth."
— San Francisco Chronicle
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"The Escher String Quartet's performance burnished Mendelssohn's intelligent designs with subtly expressive nuance."
— Metro Active
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