If you go
› What: String Theory performance by Emerson String Quartet.› When: 6:30 p.m. today, May 19; Art Connection program, with gallery tour, at 5:30 p.m.› Where: Hunter Museum of American Art, 10 Bluff View.› Admission: $30 Hunter members, $40 nonmembers, $10 students with ID, $25 groups of 20+.› Phone: 423-267-0968.› Website: stringtheorymusic.org.
String Theory, a musical partnership between Lee University and the Hunter Museum of American Art, will conclude its seventh season tonight, May 19, with the local debut of the world-renowned Emerson String Quartet.
The musicians - Eugene Drucker (violin), Larry Dutton (viola), Philip Setzer (violin) and Paul Watkins (cello) - will perform Haydn's String Quartet in C, Op. 76, No. 3, "Emperor," and Tchaikovsky's String Quartet No. 3 in E-Flat, Op. 30.
According to its promotional material, the Emerson String Quartet has an unparalleled list of achievements. The ensemble can lay claim to more than 30 recordings, nine Grammys (two for Best Classical Album), three Gramophone Awards, the Avery Fisher Prize, Musical America's Ensemble of the Year and collaborations with a who's who of artists.
In January 2015, the quartet received the Richard J. Bogomolny National Service Award, Chamber Music America's highest honor, in recognition of its significant and lasting contribution to the chamber music field.
The ensemble, which took its name from poet and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson, is quartet-in-residence at Stony Brook University in New York.
String Theory was founded in 2009 by pianist Gloria Chien, who serves as its artistic director.
Before this performance, Ellen Simak, the museum's former curator, and Robert Bernhardt, conductor emeritus of the Chattanooga Symphony & Opera, will lead an Art Connection program through the gallery, discussing works from the Hunter collection that relate to the music featured in the evening's concert.