fter 44 seasons comprising thousands of concerts on multiple continents, dozens of recordings, and definitive performances of the greatest works in the literature, the Emerson String Quartet says goodbye to its listeners from the CMS stage.

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Emerson String Quartet: Farewell Performance

Lincoln Center

Join us for a must-see performance as the Emerson String Quartet returns to the Terrace Theater for the final time—the penultimate performance before the esteemed quartet disbands.

Emerson String Quartet

Kennedy Center

This farewell concert will be held on Staller Center's Main Stage. It will celebrate the Quartet's almost 25-year-long history as Artists in Residence here at Stony Brook. Following the performance, a celebratory reception for all attendees will be held in the Main Lobby.

Emerson String Quartet Grand Finale At Stony Brook

Staller Center for the Arts

The beloved Emerson Quartet returns to Aspen one final time in a meaningful stop at Harris Concert Hall—a hall they once inaugurated in 1993. Since the celebrated ensemble’s first appearance at the AMFS in 1983, the Emerson Quartet has been a fixture of the Festival. Now, enjoy a final opportunity to hear them performing a quintessential program of works by Ravel, Walker, Beethoven, and Shostakovich before they hang up their instruments for good.

Special Event: Emerson String Quartet: The Aspen Farewell Concert1

Aspen Meadows Resort

Special Event: Emerson String Quartet: The Aspen Farewell Concert

The renowned Emerson String Quartet (Eugene Drucker and Philip Setzer, violins; Lawrence Dutton, viola; Paul Watkins, cello) are embarking on their worldwide farewell tour, and we are delighted that they will join us for our Season Opener Mainstage Chamber Concert. The Emerson String Quartet, called “America’s greatest quartet” by Time Magazine, will be disbanding at the completion of their tour after more than four decades of performing together, and Philip Setzer will be launching a new phase of his career as Manchester Music Festival’s Artistic Director.

Season Opener Mainstage Chamber Concert

Southern Vermont Arts Center

The Emerson String Quartet, in its final New York series, performs the repertoire which earned the Emerson its reputation as one of history’s greatest chamber ensembles.
The Emerson’s iconic interpretations of the complete quartets of Bartók and Shostakovich earned them international acclaim and multiple Grammy Awards. This program dedicated to modernism also includes essential voices from the Impressionist and Second Viennese schools.

Emerson Dimensions III

The Emerson String Quartet, in its final New York series, performs the repertoire which earned the Emerson its reputation as one of history’s greatest chamber ensembles.
This concert displays the ensemble’s inheritance of the greatest string playing traditions from its mentors, in works that mine the depths of the Romantic style.

Emerson Dimensions II

After 12 appearances on our series since 1979, 9 GRAMMY awards, and more than 30 celebrated recordings, the legendary Emerson String Quartet returns one last time as they make the final tour of their venerated 47-year career. Their program embodies the bittersweet nature of this occasion: pairing Shostakovich’s tragic final string quartet with one of the most life-affirming works in all of music history, Mendelssohn’s treasured string octet. Joining them for an encore performance on our series of this beloved octet are the Emerson’s protégés, the Calidore String Quartet. Come be a part of this momentous celebration as we experience this symbolic passing of the baton—or bow, as it were—from one generation to the next as we close our 129th Concert Classics series, both marking a historic moment and looking to the future.

Emerson & Calidore String Quartets

Richardson Auditorium

Emerson String Quartet & Calidore String Quartet

The Emerson String Quartet, in its final New York series, performs the repertoire which earned the Emerson its reputation as one of history’s greatest chamber ensembles.The series begins with the string quartet literature at its auspicious birth in the hands of Haydn and Mozart, culminates in one of Beethoven’s game-changing “Razumovsky” quartets, and opens with a nod to both distant and recent pasts with an arrangement of a Purcell chaconne by Benjamin Britten.

Emerson Dimensions I

After more than 45 years, one of the most acclaimed and venerable string quartets in the world graces us with a stop on its farewell tour. The Emerson String Quartet’s impact on the world of classical music performance cannot be overstated. With more than 30 acclaimed recordings, 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 Quartet has collaborated with some of today’s most esteemed composers to premiere new works, keeping the string quartet form alive and relevant. This program of masterworks will leave you breathless and not ready to say goodbye.

Conrad Prebys Performing Arts Center

After 47 years of performing as a group, Emerson String Quartet launches their farewell tour to commemorate their music and time spent together as an internationally acclaimed ensemble. Our audiences have looked forward to their concerts time and time again, and for their final concert here, these four performers are closing out their time performing with an unforgettable concert.

Segerstrom Center for the Arts

This is your chance to catch one of the world’s great musical ensembles on its final tour. The Emerson String Quartet has maintained its place as a universally acclaimed and unflaggingly popular quartet for more than 40 years. In addition to definitive interpretations, these four artists infuse their performances with emotional impact and personality. “With musicians like this, there must be some hope for humanity” (The Times of London).

War Memorial and Performing Arts Center

The Emerson String Quartet has maintained its status as one of the world’s premier chamber music ensembles for more than four decades. “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 Quartet collaborates with some of today’s most esteemed composers to premiere new works, keeping the string quartet form alive and relevant. The group has partnered in performance with such stellar soloists as Renée Fleming, Barbara Hannigan, Evgeny Kissin, Emanuel Ax, and Yefim Bronfman, to name a few.

Saint Anthony Park United Church of Christ

Few ensembles have achieved the stature of the Emerson String Quartet, one of the most celebrated of all time. “For precision and unanimity it is second to none…so perfectly in tune that it [is] almost uncanny,” attests London’s Financial Times. Along with the insightful musicians of the Escher String Quartet, this estimable force takes command of an infrequently performed repertoire, with Mendelssohn’s genre-defining Octet for Strings as its centerpiece. The occasion offers all the more reason to applaud: after 47 superb seasons, the distinguished Emerson takes its final bow in summer 2023.

Emerson String Quartet + Escher String Quartet

Lafayette College

Do not miss your chance to be there when the Emerson String Quartet takes the stage at Jordan Hall for their final concert with Celebrity Series, the last of 27 appearances.

New England Conservatory

The group, founded as a student group at The Juilliard School in 1976 and named for the transcendentalist poet and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson, has performed 17 concerts in Rackham Auditorium since their UMS debut in 1989.

University of Michigan

Hailed by the New York Times as one of the most impressive of American string quartets, the venerable Emerson String Quartet returns for another memorable performance at the Herbst Theatre. Performing and recording a range of repertoire from Bach to Harbison, this nine-time Grammy Award-winning ensemble continues to make significant and lasting contributions to the world of chamber music.

The Emerson String Quartet, formed at the Juilliard School in 1976, continues to be the defining quartet of our time, with an unrivaled history of international concerts, unprecedented repertoire projects, and standard-setting recordings that have garnered nine Grammy Awards. With a program crafted uniquely for Music@Menlo, the Emerson returns to share the time-honed skill and artistry that places the ensemble among history’s greatest. <strong>The event premieres at 5 p.m. Pacific Time on Sunday, February 14 and is available to watch online until February 21.</strong>

The Emerson String Quartet

For the members of the Emerson String Quartet, fifty years of playing together is coming to a close. Four Rational People follows them through the final season of a career that includes nine Grammy Awards and thousands of concerts, weaving vivid memories of the quartet's history with quiet observations of life on the road in their last weeks together.

Emerson String Quartet

Dec 9, 2026

Four Rational People

Oct 22, 2023

Emerson String Quartet: Farewell Performance

Oct 20, 2023

Emerson String Quartet

Emerson String Quartet