Guarneri looks to retirement

A Nov. 11 concert at Caltech’s Beckman Auditorium will be among the last Southern California appearances by the esteemed Guarneri String Quartet, which has announced that it will retire at the end of the 2008-09 season.

The quartet -- violinists Arnold Steinhardt and John Dalley, violist Michael Tree and cellist Peter Wiley -- has other dates pending in La Jolla, Orange County, Santa Barbara and at UCLA, according to spokesman Stuart Wolferman.

The Guarneri issued a statement this week saying it had decided its 45th anniversary would be the appropriate time to exit. “This has not only been a long journey but a deeply satisfying one as well,” the statement said.

Formed in 1964 at the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont, the Guarneri has had only one personnel change in its history, in 2000, when Wiley replaced his mentor, David Soyer. The members will continue to teach at the University of Maryland and have not ruled out future recordings, Wolferman said.