March 8-9: Emerald City Music Presents Quartet in Spotlight: Abeo Quartet and the Calidore Quartet
Emerald City Music Presents
Quartet in Spotlight: Abeo Quartet and the Calidore Quartet
Featuring Felix Mendelssohn’s String Octet in E-flat Major, Op. 20
Plus Music by Dimitri Shostakovich and W.A. Mozart
Violinist Kristin Lee, Artistic Director
Friday, March 8, 2024 at 8pm
415 Westlake | 415 Westlake Avenue N | Seattle, WA
Tickets & Information
Saturday, March 9, 2024 at 7:30pm
The Minnaert Center for the Arts | 2011 Mottman Rd SW | Olympia, WA
Tickets & Information
“[Artistic Director Kristin Lee] wants to show you, through Emerald City Music’s concert series, just how varied and innovative chamber music can be.”
– The Seattle Times
Seattle & Olympia, WA – On Friday, March 8, 2024 at 8pm in Seattle at 415 Westlake (415 Westlake Avenue N) and Saturday, March 9, 2024 at 7:30pm in Olympia at The Minnaert Center for the Arts (2011 Mottman Rd SW), Emerald City Music (ECM) presents its annual Quartet in Spotlight series, featuring not one, but two exceptional string quartets sharing the stage: the Abeo Quartet (Njioma Grevious, violin; Rebecca Benjamin, violin; James Kang, viola; Macintyre Taback, cello) and the Calidore Quartet (Jeffrey Myers, violin; Ryan Meehan, violin; Jeremy Berry, viola; and Estelle Choi, cello).
The collaboration of these two ensembles celebrates a very meaningful relationship and built legacy: the multi-award winning Calidore has served as mentors and teachers to the emerging Abeo Quartet at the University of Delaware. Each ensemble will perform a work on their own in the spotlight. The Calidore performs W.A. Mozart’s Quartet No. 16 (1783), a tuneful work that redefined the possibility of musical form and bearing a dedication to his contemporary Joseph Haydn.
The Abeo performs Dimitri Shostakovich’s String Quartet No. 11 in F Minor, Op. 122 (1966), a cryptic suite of seven movements that bitterly elegizes the passing of Vasili Shrinsky, a close friend of Shostakovich and a member of the Beethoven Quartet to whom he dedicated four quartets. The Calidore and Abeo Quartets finally join together to perform arguably among the most resplendent pieces of music ever written: Felix Mendelssohn’s String Octet in E-flat Major (1825). Written at the mere age of sixteen, Mendelssohn’s prodigious symphonic vision met his affection late in life as he called it: “my favorite of all of my compositions.”
Of this thoughtfully curated program, Artistic Director Kristin Lee says:
“As a part of our Quartet in Spotlight segment, we couldn't overlook the fact that we are celebrating our Eighth Season at ECM and decided to feature these two fantastic quartets to join forces on one of the most beloved pieces of the chamber music repertoire- Mendelssohn's Octet. The Calidore Quartet mentored the Abeo String Quartet at University of Delaware in the recent years, so it will be such a special performance to witness the leading quartet of our time collaborating with the next generation of up and coming string quartets. It's a program not to be missed!”
For the performance at 415 Westlake, audiences can enjoy ECM’s flagship “date-night experience,” which combines vibrant classical performance with an open bar, and a “wander-around” concert setting with no stage dividing the audience from the musicians. The second performance of the program in Olympia will take place at the Capital High School Performing Arts Center.
Emerald City Music (ECM) is the Pacific Northwest home for eclectic, intimate, and vibrant classical chamber music experiences. Known for their casual environment combined with award winning artists, ECM has gained recognition from several high-profile publications like Seattle Times, The City Arts deemed ECM “the beacon for the casual-classical movement.” Unique to only ECM attendees are encouraged to wear casual clothes, enjoy the open bar and walk around in order to increase the satisfaction of each of the ECM concerts. The Seattle Times calls ECM’s programming “very different,” noting its “nontraditional atmosphere,” which often “doesn’t have a stage separating performers from the audience, and artists mingle with the audience during the intermission.”
This performance, and all of ECM’s mainstage performances this season, will be recorded live and then made available on Emerald TV, ECM’s subscription-based streaming platform for performances and additional video content.
For more about the artists, visit: www.emeraldcitymusic.org/season-artists
About Kristin Lee, ECM Artistic Director
Kristin Lee is a violinist of remarkable versatility and impeccable technique who enjoys a vibrant career as a soloist, chamber musician, educator, and artistic director. “Her technique is flawless, and she has a sense of melodic shaping that reflects an artistic maturity,” writes the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and The Strad reports, “She seems entirely comfortable with stylistic diversity, which is one criterion that separates the run-of-the-mill instrumentalists from true artists.”
As a soloist, Lee has appeared with leading orchestras including The Philadelphia Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, New Jersey Symphony, Hawai’i Symphony, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Ural Philharmonic of Russia, Korean Broadcasting Symphony, Guiyang Symphony Orchestra of China, and Orquesta Sinfonica Nacional of Dominican Republic. She has performed on the world’s finest concert stages, including Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, the Kennedy Center, Kimmel Center, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Ravinia Festival, the Louvre Museum, the Phillips Collection, and Korea’s Kumho Art Gallery. An accomplished chamber musician, Kristin Lee became a member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center after winning The Bowers Program audition and completing the program's three-year residency. In addition to her prolific performance career, Lee is a devoted educator. She is on the faculty of the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music as an Assistant Professor of Violin. Lee is also the founding artistic director of Emerald City Music (ECM), a chamber music series that presents authentically unique concert experiences and bridges the divide between the highest caliber classical music and the many diverse communities of the Puget Sound region of Washington State.
Kristin Lee’s honors include an Avery Fisher Career Grant, top prizes in the Walter W. Naumburg Competition and the Astral Artists National Auditions, and awards from the Trondheim Chamber Music Competition, Trio di Trieste Premio International Competition, the SYLFF Fellowship, Dorothy DeLay Scholarship, the Aspen Music Festival’s Violin Competition, the New Jersey Young Artists’ Competition, and the Salon de Virtuosi Scholarship Foundation.
Born in Seoul, Lee moved to the United States and studied under prestigious teachers including Sonja Foster, Catherine Cho, Dorothy DeLay, Donald Weilerstein, and Itzhak Perlman. Lee holds a Master’s degree from The Juilliard School. Lee’s violin was crafted in Naples, Italy in 1759 by Gennaro Gagliano and is generously loaned to her by Paul & Linda Gridley. For more information, visit www.violinistkristinlee.com.
About ECM
Founded in 2015, Emerald City Music produces and tours seven productions annually, with each tour visiting Seattle’s South Lake Union (415 Westlake, a chic contemporary venue with an open bar), Olympia’s Minnaert Center (a 495 seat modern concert hall), a once annual concert at the Bellingham Music Festival, and an annual concert in New York City.
ECM has gained recognition regionally and nationally as a major player in the chamber music scene. Artistic Director Kristin Lee –– a touring violinist awarded the Avery Fisher Career Grant and a member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center –– is regarded for her innovative programming that both honors the tradition of chamber music while expanding the genre’s boundary past common limits. Emerald City Music made a name for itself beginning in its second season with a national collaborative commission with Grammy-winning composer John Luther Adams, and has continued to press the boundary of chamber music with accolades like a tour of Steve Reich’s iconic and rare Music for 18 Musicians, a pitch-black performance of Georg Haas’s “In the Dark” quartet, and the West Coast debut of the Danish folk group The Dreamers’ Circus.
ECM values real, authentic connection and holds the belief that music possesses the innate power to connect people, inclusive of varying backgrounds and perspectives. Over eight years, artists from every corner of the globe have visited Emerald City Music to prove just that: there exists a special connection between artist and listener that only music can facilitate.
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