PENDERECKI QUARTET

Pronounced: PEN DER ES KEY

There's no line in the City's budget for an international ambassador, yet our artists, just by doing what they do best, often serve that function. Whenever the Penderecki Quartet goes on tour (from China to Newfoundland, from Venezuela to the Yukon), the performances generate excitement, and people the world over know that Waterloo is home to this renowned ensemble.

Occasionally there are even those "small world" moments when people feel a particular connection to Waterloo because of the Pendereckis. For example, this past summer when the Quartet was teaching an international group of advanced music students in Italy, one of the talented young violinists turned out to be the son of a man who had grown up only blocks from Waterloo's City Hall, and whose grandmother had been a UW grad student!  Now in his last year of high school out west, WLU is at the top of this student's list of universities for next year.

Take away the family connection, and that's not an atypical story. Because the PSQ is quartet-in-residence at Laurier's Faculty of Music, Waterloo has attracted wave after wave of talented music students, some of whom put down roots and stay after graduation, all of whom enrich the cultural life of our community while they are here.

I’d like to introduce the members of the Quartet. The two violinists are Jerzy (yer jee) Kaplanek and Jeremy Bell. Chistine Vlajk (vlike) plays viola and Simon Fryer is the cellist.

In addition to comtemporary music, their repetoire includes classical composers such as Bach and Brahms. It is through their association with the composer, Penderecki, that they have recorded his complete works for String Quartet.

They have premiered over 100 new works by contemporary composers including works by two composers also on the faculty atWLU: Glenn Buhr and Peter Hatch.

In spite of demands for performances and for teaching internationally, Jerzy, Jeremy, Christine and Simon devote much of their time to Quartetfest, an intensive Spring-term seminar held here in Waterloo at WLU. Their involvement in education is a year-round commitment.  Under the Quartet’s direction, the string program has become one of the top programs in Canada, attracting an international body of students.

We are proud to have the Penderecki Quartet in Waterloo. We celebrate the teaching, and performing which you, Jerzy, Jeremy, Christine and Simon, make so generously available to all of us.     Thank you!

The Pendercki String Quartet was recognized by the City of Waterloo Council on September 10, 2007.