Ehnes Quartet brings chamber music to the Palladium

With all rightful props given to The Florida Orchestra and the Tampa Bay Symphony, some listeners contend that there still isn’t enough classical music in the bay area.

Specifically, there’s not a great representation of chamber music – performances by a small group of musicians, the sort of intimate, up-close-and-personal audience experience that’s all but nonexistent with a big orchestra in a big room.

The clouds will part Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. when the Ehnes Quartet performs in the Palladium Theater’s Hough Hall (that’s the big theater upstairs) as part of the semi-regular Palladium Chamber Series.

Curated by TFO first violinist Jeffrey Multer, the series fills the chamber gap – somewhat – with five concerts per season.

One of Multer’s rotating players is cellist Edward Arron, whose “regular” gig is as the cornerstone of the founded-in-Seattle Ehnes Quartet, known (and admired) for taking on, and beautifully rendering, the dynamic, difficult and multi-hued string quartets of Ludwig van Beethoven. Among other things.

The quartet also includes violinists James Ehnes (artistic director of the Seattle Chamber Music Society, and a part-time resident of Manatee County) and Amy Schwartz Moretti, and violist Che-Yen Chen. All four members are internationally renowned and in-demand. They have been playing together as a quartet for 23 years.

South Florida Classical Review praised the group’s “flawless ensemble and patrician musicianship” in reviewing an April performance in Miami that included Mendelssohn’s Quartet in E minor, Op. 44, no. 2. “Ehnes and his colleagues evidenced such freshness and spontaneity that it seemed as if they were improvising Mendelssohn’s music in performance.”

Wednesday’s program will include:

Joseph Haydn – String Quartet in G Major, Op. 77, No. 1

Benjamin Britten – String Quartet No. 2 in C Major, Op. 36

Robert Schumann – String Quartet in A minor, Op. 41, No. 1.

Find tickets here.