The Pacifica Quartet and clarinettist McGill have concertized coast-to-coast, performing the quintets for enthusiastic audiences in the San Francisco Bay area; St. Paul, Minn.; Chicago, Boston, and other cultural centers, including an in-studio concert from New York’s WQXR radio. The San Jose Mercury News lauded their approach to the Mozart Quintet: “What a sweet kiss of a performance: mellifluous, ephemeral, luxuriously fine.” The San Francisco Chronicle called the collaboration “a model of conviviality and responsiveness.” A Twin Cities reviewer said the artists’ “engaging performance” of the Brahms Quintet made the melodies “feel almost improvisational” and praised the “seamless integration of the clarinet and strings.”
Produced by multiple Grammy-winner Judith Sherman, Mozart & Brahms Clarinet Quintets is McGill’s first commercially released album as featured soloist and his Cedille Records debut. This is the Pacifica Quartet’s ninth Cedille album. Record buyers are familiar with the Pacifica Quartet’s polished, full-blooded approach to late-classical repertoire from the ensemble’s multi-CD set of Mendelssohn’s complete string quartets on Cedille Records. Gramophone called it “one of the best,” lauding the quartet’s “distinctive tonal quality, clear and luminous.” London’s Daily Telegraph praised the box set as the new benchmark for its “ideal Mendelssohnian blend of fire and grace.” The St. Louis Post-Dispatch proclaimed it “sets a new gold standard [for these works]… bring[ing] a freshness and emotional commitment to these appealing compositions.”
The Pacifica Quartet’s 2014 European tour cities include Antwerp, Belgium; Paris, France; London and Manchester, England; Mannheim and Munich, Germany; and Florence, Italy.
