Takács Quartet

About This Performance

“The consummate artistry of the Takács Quartet is simply breathtaking… the best I have ever heard” (The Guardian). Formed in Budapest in 1975, the Takács has become a Philadelphia favorite for its unique blend of drama, warmth, humor, and precision, combining four distinct and compelling musical personalities to bring fresh insights to the string quartet repertoire.

Their PCMS return features the Philadelphia premiere of flow, a new work by Nokuthula Ngwenyama, of which the composer says: “We, as biological creatures, flow through life. Conversely, the flow of existence is temporarily housed in all living creatures each generation.  Everything in nature flows and develops through time. Individual consciousness is a small part of all collectively lived experience. When the Takács Quartet asked me to write them a piece about the natural world. I researched seasonal starling murmurations, black hole collisions, protein music (converting protein sequences or genes to musical notes), Sars-Covid-2 Omicron and ‘Kraken’ variants, peat fields as nature’s gift to carbon reclamation, and Madagascar lemur song and rhythms.”