Dear Friends,

For the 2019-2020 season the Peachtree String Quartet will be celebrating Beethoven’s 250th birthday. Beethoven was born in Bonn, Germany on the 17th of December 1770. This year music lovers all over the world will be celebrating his monumental musical achievements. Our “Better Be Beethoven” concert series will feature a Beethoven string quartet on every program. Beethoven wrote 15 string quartets, all considered masterpieces and certainly among the greatest works ever written for string quartet. These quartets are generally divided into three compositional periods, early, middle and late. Our fall, winter and spring concerts will follow Beethoven’s musical journey, featuring a quartet from each period, opus 18, opus 74 and concluding with his glorious opus 132. For the final program ASO “insider" and annotator Ken Meltzer will again be joining us. Our concerts will also feature wonderful works from some familiar and some less familiar composers including Haydn, Grieg, Boccherini and Arvo Part.

The concert dates at our home venue, the Garden Hills Recreation Center, are October 6, January 12, and March 15. Please mark your calendars! Our Garden Hills venue offers listeners a chance to hear great string quartet performances in an intimate atmosphere. We take pride in the personal connections we make with our audiences during our presentations at the "Recreation Center". One listener recently described the concert experience as if "sitting inside a great big cello". We are proud of our diverse audiences and the sense of community that shared love of music helps engender every time we get together.

ARTSATL recently described the Peachtree String Quartet as “one of Atlanta’s best kept secrets... classical fans hungry for a diverse repertoire and masterful players are strongly encouraged to join the ranks of the Peachtree String Quartet’s growing audience”.

https://www.artsatl.org/review-peachtree-string-quartet-launches-seventh-season-in-grand-fashion/

We are also delighted to announce that cellist Thomas Carpenter will be joining the Peachtree String Quartet. Thomas joined the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra in 2017 and has performed extensively around the country both as soloist and chamber musician. We are thrilled that he has decided to join PSQ and look forward to introducing him to all of you.

In addition to our series of concerts in Garden Hills, PSQ will continue to perform around the metro area and around the state of Georgia. Stay tuned for more information about our programs and concerts. Information is also available on our website, peachtreestringquartet.org and on our Facebook page.

Wishing you a wonderful summer and looking forward to seeing you at our 8th season of performances this fall, winter and spring. Our “Better Be Beethoven” concerts will include some of the greatest music the Peachtree String Quartet has ever had the privilege to present.

Christopher Pulgram, Director

The Peachtree String Quartet was formed in 2012 by four distinguished Atlanta musicians who have performed around the world as soloists and chamber musicians: Christopher Pulgram (director), John Meisner, Yang-Yoon Kim and Jennifer Humphreys.

PSQ brings an innovative approach to Atlanta's chamber music scene – a clear focus on string quartet music. The group seeks to return chamber music to its purest form: two violinists, a violist and a cellist playing the greatest chamber music ever written for all kinds of people in intimate settings. (The group’s home base is the welcoming and woodsy Garden Hills Recreation Center, a stone’s throw from its director’s house.) For many, PSQ opens the door to string quartet music they haven't yet had a chance to encounter and enjoy.

Concerts feature both well-loved and rarely heard selections to delight and move audiences. The group’s repertoire spans 300 years and includes works written as recently as last year.