A Rare Sighting

The t-shirts that the Menlo Festival are selling this year proclaim "Beethoven: Center of Gravity," but there are many musicians who might agree with this change: "Da-Hong Seetoo: Center of Gravity." Da-Hong is the recording producer for the Music at Menlo festival, a man who has more talents than any one person should have. A Curtis and Juilliard trained violinist, Da-Hong is also the Grammy-winning engineer for the Emerson Quartet. While at Menlo, Da-Hong lives in the nursery at St. Mark's Church (the site of most concerts), working with each ensemble's rehearsals during the day, recording the concerts each evening and in between doing the final editing and production in preparation for the radio broadcasts and future Menlo compact discs. He's a critical part of the Menlo team as any one of the festival musicians will tell you, but the audience never sees him.

Until tonight. On the penultimate night of the Festival the Emerson String Quartet took the stage to perform Beethoven's final and most challenging quartets