Víkingur Ólafsson

Víkingur Ólafsson piano

Saturday | February 10 | 8pm

NEC’s Jordan Hall

After a rapturously received sold-out Celebrity Series debut in 2022, pianist Víkingur Ólafsson returns to one of the composers that has defined his career to date, and puts his own stamp on an iconic work for the Baroque keyboard: Bach's Goldberg Variations.

Drawing out the underlying structures and illuminating extraordinary moments, Ólafsson reflects and refracts well-known works to make us hear them in new ways. With its rigorous form and opportunities for flights of virtuosic expression, what will this suite become in the hands of one of Bach’s most innovative and thoughtful interpreters? Let’s find out together.

Program: J.S. Bach Goldberg Variations

Takács Quartet

Friday | February 16 | 8pm

NEC’s Jordan Hall

The Takács Quartet are renowned around the world for their elegant, incisive accounts of the classic quartet repertoire and for their appetite for new music. Their program for this engagement offers two notable classical era string quartets—Haydn’s luminous “Sunrise” Quartet and the second of Beethoven’s “Razumovsky” Quartets, a bold and tempestuous showpiece for the whole ensemble.

Paired with these quartets, the ensemble performs an exciting new Celebrity Series co-commission from American violist and composer Nokuthula Ngwenyama, an Avery Fisher Career Grant recipient for her prowess as a performer. Her work as a composer has been praised by Gramophone magazine for “providing solidly shaped music of bold mesmerizing character.”

Program:

Joseph Haydn String Quartet, Op. 76, no. 4 “Sunrise”

Nokuthula Ngwenyama New work, Celebrity Series co-commission

Ludwig van Beethoven String Quartet, Op. 59, no. 2 “Razumovsky”