EMERSON STRING QUARTET Returns to Segerstrom Center

Segerstrom Center for the Arts welcomes the annual return of acclaimed ensemble, the Emerson String Quartet on May 14, 2019, at 8:00 p.m. in a program that will feature the first West Coast performance of Shostakovich and the Black Monk: A Russian Fantasy. Co-created by writer-director, James Glossman and Emerson violinist Philip Setzer, this new multi-media work features seven actors in addition to the quartet and depicts the trials and challenges of composer Dmitri Shostakovich and his unwavering quest to write an opera based on Chekhov’s mystical tale The Black Monk. Emerson String Quartet members include Eugene Drucker and Philip Setzer, violins; Lawrence Dutton, viola and Paul Watkins, cello.

The cast includes acclaimed stage and screen veterans David Strathairn (Dmitri Shostakovich), Sean Astin (Josef Stalin, Stalin as Pesotsky), Ali Breneman (Tanya, Nina Shostakovich), Evelyn McGee Colbert (Margarita Shostakovich, Varvara Nikolayevna and others), Alex Glossman (Young Dmitri Shostakovich, Kovrin), Paul Murphy (The Black Monk, Pesotsky) and Linda Setzer (Irina Shostakovich and others).

Shostakovich and The Black Monk: A Russian Fantasy was co-commissioned by the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, Princeton University and Tanglewood Music Festival, and has been presented at the Ravinia Music Festival, Wolf Trap, in Seoul, South Korea and at Stony Brook University.

Single tickets start at $49 and are now available online at www.SCFTA.org, at the Box Office at 600 Town Center Drive in Costa Mesa or by calling (714) 556-2787. For inquiries about group ticket savings of 10 or more, please call the Group Services office at (714) 755-0236.