Haydn Voyages: Music at the Maritime
The Hausmann Quartet and Maritime Museum of San Diego are excited to partner to present the eighth season of Haydn Voyages: Music at the Maritime, a quarterly concert series performed aboard one of the Museum’s ten historic world-class vessels, the 1898 steam ferryboat Berkeley that operated for 60 years on San Francisco Bay.
Concerts aboard the Berkeley, also a National Historic Landmark docked in downtown San Diego next to Star of India, explore the evolution of the string quartet through the lens of Joseph Haydn's quartet cycle. Part of the vision for the Haydn Voyages series is for the Hausmann Quartet to perform the entire Haydn cycle of 68 works. Their scorecard at the start of the 2023 season stands at 42 quartets, or 62%.
The programming and performances by this accomplished young foursome set his works alongside those of master composers from our own era and stretching back to Haydn’s musical ancestors. As the father of the string quartet and one of history's most innovative composers, Haydn is an ideal guide to this exploration of some of the most powerful, creative music ever written.
All concerts are Sundays at 2:30 pm. Each creative program will include informative and entertaining commentary between selections from noted UC Santa Barbara musicologist Derek Katz.
February 26 - Then & Now
We open the eighth season of our Haydn Voyages series with an exploration of past and present, early and late. The first half of this concert features two Haydn quartets: one from his opus 9 set, which he considered his first mature group of string quartets, and one of his masterpieces written a quarter century later. Tomeka Reid (recent MacArthur Fellow) is one of the most exciting voices writing today, and Mendelssohn’s exuberant D Major Quartet closes this show with a bang!
May 21 - Mementos
May’s program journeys through places and times far and wide, from Haydn’s Vienna and London to Milhaud’s Europe, Caroline Shaw’s musical depiction of the grounds of Washington DC’s Dumbarton Oaks and Max Vinetz’s work inspired by a cross-country journey. Max was also a prize winner in our 2021 Quarantine Composition Competition, and we’re proud to share his work in his native San Diego.
September 17 - Impressions
Ned Rorem would have been 100 this fall, and his fourth quartet is based on impressions from a collection of Picasso’s paintings (“sort of,” in the composer’s words). How do other art forms influence and inform each other? How can our dialogue with masterpieces of the past be shared in our performances today? This collection of works on its own can’t possibly answer these questions, but may pose some of its own…
November 19 - Patterns of Americana
The 2023 season of Haydn Voyages concludes with a journey through America’s last century of creativity, featuring groundbreaking works by Charles Ives (his second quartet), Lou Harrison and inti figgis-vizueta. Though these three composers come from diverse backgrounds and traditions, their distinctive voices provide compelling tastes from our continent’s cultural melting pot.
Haydn Voyages is generously underwritten by pH Projects, with additional support from the City of San Diego's Commission for Arts and Culture and The Conrad Prebys Foundation.
