Calidore String Quartet 

This concert is performed by the Calidore String Quartet, an ensemble acclaimed for its expressive artistry and balance of technical brilliance with warmth. The program opens with a String Quartet in F major long attributed to Benjamin Franklin, the American statesman and inventor. Though its authorship remains uncertain, the piece offers a fascinating glimpse into 18th-century musical life. Haydn’s “Joke” Quartet follows, one of the witty Op. 33 quartets that earned him the title “father of the string quartet.” Mozart’s “Prussian” Quartet in B-flat major, written for the cello-loving King of Prussia, highlights graceful melodies and elegant writing for all four instruments. The Italian Serenade by Hugo Wolf brings lively charm and character, and the evening closes with Wynton Marsalis’s At the Octoroon Balls, a modern work that draws on jazz, blues, and dance rhythms to give the string quartet an unmistakably American voice.

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Program

This program is approximately 2 hours and 30 minutes long, inclusive of one intermission.

Performers

CALIDORE STRING QUARTET
JEFFREY MYERS, violin
RYAN MEEHAN, violin
JEREMY BERRY, viola
ESTELLE CHOI, cello

The Calidore String Quartet is recognized as one of the world’s foremost interpreters of a vast chamber music repertory, from the cycles of quartets by Beethoven and Mendelssohn to works of celebrated contemporary voices like György Kurtág, Jörg Widmann, and Caroline Shaw. For more than a decade, the Calidore has enjoyed performances and residencies in the world’s major venues and festivals, released multiple critically acclaimed recordings, and won numerous awards. The Los Angeles Times described the musicians as “astonishing,” their playing “shockingly deep,” approaching “the kind of sublimity other quartets spend a lifetime searching.” The New York Times noted the Quartet’s “deep reserves of virtuosity and irrepressible dramatic instinct,” and the Washington Post wrote that “four more individual musicians are unimaginable, yet these speak, breathe, think and feel as one.” 

 The New York City–based Calidore String Quartet has appeared in venues throughout North America, Europe, and Asia, including Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, London’s Wigmore Hall, Berlin’s Konzerthaus, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, BOZAR in Brussels, and at major festivals such as the BBC Proms, Verbier, Ravinia, and Music@Menlo. The Quartet has given world premieres of works by Caroline Shaw, Anna Clyne, Gabriela Montero, Sebastian Currier, Han Lash, Mark-Anthony Turnage, and Huw Watkins, and has collaborated with artists such as Anne-Sophie Mutter, Anthony McGill, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Marc-André Hamelin, Joshua Bell, Emerson String Quartet, Gabriela Montero, David Finckel and Wu Han, and many more. 

Throughout the 2024–25 season, the Calidore perform the complete String Quartets of Beethoven at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and at the University of Delaware, and bring the complete cycle to the five boroughs of New York City through the Diamonstein-Spielvogel Initiative for Music and Community Engagement—a newly launched series dedicated to bringing chamber music into diverse neighborhoods and communities across New York City. The quartet also returns to their alma mater, the Colburn School in Los Angeles, to play the complete cycle of Korngold String Quartets. Other highlights of the 2024–25 season include return appearances with San Francisco Performances, the Celebrity Series of Boston, the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Spivey Hall in Atlanta, the Warsaw Philharmonic, and London’s Wigmore Hall; and premieres and performances of works by Han Lash, Sebastian Currier, and Gabriela Montero. 

In their most ambitious recording project to date, the Calidore is set to release Beethoven’s complete String Quartets for Signum Records. Volume I, containing the late quartets, was released in 2023 to great critical acclaim, earning the quartet BBC Music Magazine’s Chamber Award in 2024. The magazine’s five-star review noted that the Calidore’s performances “penetrate right to the heart of the music” and “can stand comparison with the best.” Volume II of the cycle comes out in the fall of 2024. Their previous recordings on Signum include Babel with music by Schumann, Shaw, and Shostakovich, and Resilience with works by Prokofiev, Janácek, Golijov, and Mendelssohn. 

Founded at the Colburn School in Los Angeles in 2010, the Calidore String Quartet has won top prizes at major US chamber music competitions, including the Fischoff, Coleman, Chesapeake, and Yellow Springs. The quartet won the $100,000 Grand Prize of the 2016 M-Prize International Chamber Music Competition as well as the Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship. The Calidore has been a BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist and recipients of the Avery Fisher Career Grant and the Lincoln Center Emerging Artist Award. 

The Calidore String Quartet serves as the University of Delaware’s Distinguished String Quartet in Residence. They have also served as artist-in-residence at the University of Toronto, University of Michigan, and Stony Brook University. The Calidore is grateful to have been mentored by the Emerson Quartet, Quatuor Ébène, André Roy, Arnold Steinhardt, David Finckel, Günter Pichler, Guillaume Sutre, Paul Coletti, and Ronald Leonard. 

Jeffrey Myers plays on a violin by Giovanni Battista Guadagnini, c. 1775, “Eisenberg,” owned by a private benefactor and bows by Dominique Peccatte and Francois Tourte. Ryan Meehan plays a violin by Vincenzo Panormo, c.1775, and a bow by Joseph Henry. Jeremy Berry plays a viola by Umberto Muschietti, c.1903, and a bow by Pierre Simon. Estelle Choi plays a cello by Charles Jacquot, c.1830. 

Ways to Save

Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center presented by Charles Schwab – Maureen Parker