Before that, there was a flurry of emails, texts and phone calls between us and various management representatives regarding the cancellation of our Europe tour, scheduled from March 11-22, as one presenter after another (but not all) canceled before we would have left. Eugene Drucker’s string quartet suite, Series of Twelve, commissioned by the New Music for Strings Festival through New Music USA, with generous support from Justus and Elizabeth Schlicting, was premiered in 2018 in Copenhagen and Reykjavik.Ĭlassical Post: How does the Emerson Quartet stay in contact with each other during this time? What do rehearsals look like if you have them?Įugene Drucker: We haven’t had too much contact during the past couple of weeks. In 2017, At The Edge of The Cliff, a song cycle based on five poems by Denise Levertov, was performed in New York City and Stony Brook. Drucker's compositional debut, a setting of four sonnets by Shakespeare, was premiered in 2008 by baritone Andrew Nolen and the Escher String Quartet at Stony Brook, where the Emerson is quartet-in-residence the songs have appeared as part of a 2-CD release called 'Stony Brook Soundings,' issued by Bridge Recordings in the spring of 2010. His novel, The Savior, was published by Simon & Schuster in 2007 and has appeared in a German translation called Wintersonate, published by Osburg Verlag in Berlin. Drucker has recorded the complete unaccompanied works of Bach, reissued by Parnassus Records, and the complete sonatas and duos of Bartók for Biddulph Recordings. He has appeared with the orchestras of Montreal, Brussels, Antwerp, Liege, Hartford, Richmond, Omaha, Jerusalem and the Rhineland-Palatinate, as well as with the American Symphony Orchestra, Aspen Chamber Symphony and Las Vegas Philharmonic. Violinist Eugene Drucker is also an active soloist. “With musicians like this,” wrote a reviewer for The Times (London), “there must be some hope for humanity.” The Quartet has made more than 30 acclaimed recordings, and has been honored with nine GRAMMYs® (including two for Best Classical Album), three Gramophone Awards, the Avery Fisher Prize, and Musical America’s “Ensemble of the Year” award. The Emerson String Quartet has maintained its status as one of the world’s premier chamber music ensembles for more than four decades.

One of the two founding members of the Emerson String Quartet, violinist Eugene Drucker, joins Classical Post for a Q&A to discuss rehearsals during quarantine, reinterpreting standard works over the years, and his own creative writing projects.

The Savior by Eugene Drucker