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Princeton University Concerts Invites Audiences On Stage with the Takács String Quartet, Violist Jordan Bak, and Cellist Abel Selaocoe

August 26, 2025

The 2025-26 season launches with two concerts on the Performances Up Close series. Concertgoers can extend their experience with pre-concert Speed Dating or Speed Friending — offerings from PUC's Do-Re-Meet series of social events for music lovers.

 

PRINCETON, NJ — Princeton University Concerts (PUC) launches its 2025–26 season with two Performances Up Close programs, a signature series in which audiences sit directly on stage with the artists in Richardson Auditorium, Alexander Hall. These intimate concerts feature world-renowned musicians in an unusually direct and informal setting, where the line between performer and listener all but disappears.

 

On Thursday, September 25 at 6PM & 9PM, the legendary Takács String Quartet—celebrating its 50th anniversary—returns to Princeton joined by the phenomenal violist Jordan Bak. Together they perform two of Mozart's greatest masterpieces, both written in 1787 while he was juggling The Marriage of Figaro's success and drafting Don Giovanni. These twin quintets showcase the viola—Mozart's favorite instrument—with a starring role. Performed by one of the most revered string quartets in the world, with Bak's radiant artistry, these works emphasize Mozart's wit, fire, and lyricism—all the better experienced Up Close.

 

On Tuesday, September 30 at 6PM & 9PM, South African cellist Abel Selaocoe makes his highly anticipated PUC debut. An international sensation since his BBC Proms breakthrough in 2021, Selaocoe has been redefining classical music by blending virtuosic cello playing with the traditions of his South African roots, throat singing, improvisation, and uncontainable joy. His program features music by J.S. Bach alongside a new work co-commissioned by PUC by visionary composer Michel van der Aa, a new work by Ben Nobuto, and his own genre-defying fusions of global traditions.

 

To extend the evening, both concerts are paired with PUC's popular Do-Re-Meet social events, designed to connect music lovers before stepping into the concert hall together. On September 25, concertgoers can take part in Pre-Concert Speed Dating before the Takács/Bak concert; on September 30, the pre-concert gathering is Pre-Concert Speed Friending before Selaocoe's debut. Both begin at 7PM at historic Maclean House on the Princeton University campus and are facilitated by Risa Grimaldi of TheSinglesGroup.com, with hors d'oeuvres from Olsson's Fine Foods, ice-breaker games, and rotating conversations before heading to the concert hall together for the 9PM performance.

 

"There's nothing quite like starting our season gathered together on stage with the artists," says PUC Director Marna Seltzer. "The Takács Quartet has become part of the fabric of PUC over many years, and hearing them in this intimate way, joined by the extraordinary Jordan Bak, will let us experience Mozart as if we're right inside the music. Abel Selaocoe brings an excitingly new energy—his music breaks boundaries and invites us into unexpected places. Pairing these concerts with the joy of people meeting each other through Do-Re-Meet feels exactly right: it's all about connection, whether through the music or in a conversation beforehand."

 

Tickets to these Performances Up Close ($43 General/$11 Students and members of the Admit All ticket access program) are limited. Please visit puc.princeton.edu or call 609-258-9220 to secure your access.

 

Tickets to the Do-Re-Meet experiences ($53 General/$26 Students and members of the Admit All ticket access program), which include access to the pre-concert social event and the ensuing 9PM concert, are available at puc.princeton.edu/do-re-meet or by calling 609-258-2800. Please direct questions about Do-Re-Meet programming to pucdoremeet@princeton.edu.

 

You can find more information about the Admit All ticket access program, which provides discounted tickets to those enrolled in qualifying aid programs, such as SNAP, Medicaid, and public housing, as well as to NJ Families First Discovery Pass holders, at puc.princeton.edu/admit-all.

 

 

Pre-Season Book Group!

In anticipation of the Music & Healing event The Dance Lives On: Contemplating Artistic Legacy with    choreographer Mark Morris (Oct. 8, 2025), PUC and the Princeton Public Library will co-host a free book  discussion of Mark Morris' memoir Out Loud on Thursday, September 18 at 12PM. The hybrid  conversation—featuring Morris collaborator and Princeton dance faculty member Tina Fehlandt—takes place at the  library and on Zoom. Registration required at puc.princeton.edu.

 

 

 

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

 

TAKÁCS STRING QUARTET

The Takács Quartet was formed in 1975 at the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest by Gabor Takács-Nagy, Károly Schranz, Gabor Ormai and András Fejér, while all four were students. Edward Dusinberre, Harumi Rhodes (violins), Richard O'Neill (viola) and András Fejér (cello) are the current members of the Quartet. The Takács maintains a busy international touring schedule; their North American engagements for their 50th anniversary season include concerts in New York, Vancouver, Philadelphia, Washington DC, Lajolla, Berkeley, Ann Arbor, Chicago, Tucson, Portland, and Princeton.

 

The Takács Quartet is known for its innovative programming. In the 2021-22 season, the ensemble partnered with bandoneon virtuoso Julien Labro to premiere new works by Clarice Assad and Bryce Dessner, commissioned by Music Accord, which they took to Princeton University Concerts among other concert series. In 2014, the Takács performed a program inspired by Philip Roth's novel Everyman with Meryl Streep at Princeton University Concerts, and again with her at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto in 2015. They first performed Everyman at Carnegie Hall in 2007 with Philip Seymour Hoffman. They have toured 14 cities with the poet Robert Pinsky, and played regularly with the Hungarian Folk group Muzsikas.

 

The members of the Takács Quartet are Christoffersen Fellows and Artists in Residence at the University of Colorado, Boulder. During the summer months the Takács join the faculty at the Music Academy of the West, running an intensive quartet seminar.

 

The Takács has recorded for Hyperion since 2005. In 2021, the Takács won a Presto Music Recording of the Year Award for their recordings of string quartets by Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn, and a Gramophone Award with pianist Garrick Ohlsson for piano quintets by Amy Beach and Elgar. Other releases for Hyperion feature works by Haydn, Schubert, Janá?ek, Smetana, Debussy, and Britten, as well as piano quintets by César Franck and Shostakovich (with Marc-André Hamelin), and viola quintets by Brahms and Dvorák (with Lawrence Power). For their CDs on the Decca/London label, the Quartet has won three Gramophone Awards, a Grammy Award, three Japanese Record Academy Awards, Disc of the Year at the inaugural BBC Music Magazine Awards, and Ensemble Album of the Year at the Classical Brits.

 

In 2014, the Takács became the first string quartet to be awarded the Wigmore Hall Medal. In 2012, Gramophone announced that the Takács was the first string quartet to be inducted into its Hall of Fame. The ensemble also won the 2011 Award for Chamber Music and Song presented by the Royal Philharmonic Society in London.

 

JORDAN BAK, VIOLA

Award-winning Jamaican-American violist Jordan Bak has achieved international acclaim as a trailblazing artist, praised for his radiant stage presence and dynamic interpretations. Critics have described him as "an exciting new voice in Classical performance" (I Care If You Listen), "a powerhouse musician, with a strong voice and compelling sound" (The Whole Note) and lauded his "haunting lyrical grace" (Gramophone). The recipient of the London Philharmonic Orchestra's 'Alexandra Jupin' Award and former Young Classical Artist Trust's (YCAT) 'Robey Artist,' Bak was also a prizewinner in the Sphinx, Lionel Tertis, and Concert Artists Guild Competitions, and has received accolades from ClassicFM, MusicalAmerica, and WQXR.

 

Bak's album, Cantabile: Anthems for Viola (Delphian Records), featuring works by Arnold Bax, Benjamin Britten, and Ralph Vaughan Williams, paired with contemporary compositions by Jonathan Harvey, Bright Sheng, and Augusta Read Thomas, has garnered significant international attention. An advocate for new music, Bak has given numerous world premieres, including Kaija Saariaho's Du gick, flög for viola and mezzo-soprano, Jessica Meyer's On fire...no, after you for viola, mezzo-soprano and piano, Augusta Read Thomas' Upon Wings of Words for string quartet and soprano, and Jeffrey Mumford's stillness echoing for viola and harp.

 

Bak has appeared as soloist with such orchestras as London Philharmonic Orchestra, Sarasota Orchestra, London Mozart Players, New York Classical Players, Juilliard Orchestra and Brandon Hill Chamber Orchestra among others, and has performed under such esteemed conductors as Howard Griffiths, Stephen Mulligan, Keith Lockhart, Gerard Schwarz, and Ewa Strusi?ska. As a recitalist and chamber musician, he has been heard at some of the world's greatest performance venues including Carnegie Hall, the Concertgebouw, Wigmore Hall, Jordan Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Merkin Concert Hall, Perelman Theater at The Kimmel Center, Elgar Concert Hall, and Helsinki Musiikkitalo.

 

ABEL SELAOCOE, CELLO

South African cellist Abel Selaocoe has taken the world by storm since bursting onto the scene in 2021 with his BBC Proms debut. Whether with symphony orchestras, in iconic club venues or at major mainstream festivals, Abel combines virtuosic cello and vocal performance with improvisation and sweeps audiences along in captivating shows which blaze with creation, sending audiences home on a high.

 

Abel grew up in Sebokeng, where he first began learning cello with his brother at the African Cultural Organization of South Africa (ACOSA) in Soweto. Abel's affinity for the cello became quickly apparent and he continued his studies on scholarship at St John's College before moving to the UK where he found a musical home at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. In Manchester, he met the musicians who are now his most regular collaborators, and this has led to the formation of his bands, Chesaba and the Bantu Ensemble.

 

Abel's debut album on Warner Classics Hae Ke Kae was released to critical acclaim in 2022. His second album, Hymns of Bantu, released in February 2025, celebrates his South African heritage and traces his ancestral path that leads into his vast influences including Western classical repertoire.