July 6: Telegraph Quartet Presented by Mohawk Trail Concerts – Performing the Music of Ludwig van Beethoven, Kenji Bunch, and Antonin Dvořák
Telegraph Quartet Presented by Mohawk Trail Concerts Performing the Music of Ludwig van Beethoven, Kenji Bunch, and Antonin Dvořák
Photo of the Telegraph Quartet by Lisa Marie Mazzucco available in high resolution here.
Telegraph Quartet Presented by Mohawk Trail Concerts
Performing the Music of
Ludwig van Beethoven, Kenji Bunch, and Antonin Dvořák
Saturday, July 6, 2024 at 5pm
Charlemont Federated Church | 175 Main St. | Charlemont, MA
Tickets and More information
“full of elegance and pinpoint control” – The New York Times
Charlemont, MA – On Saturday, July 6, 2024 at 5pm, the San Francisco-based Telegraph Quartet (Eric Chin and Joseph Maile, violins; Pei-Ling Lin, viola; Jeremiah Shaw, cello), a group described by The Strad as having "precise tuning, textural variety and impassioned communication,” will be presented in concert by Mohawk Trail Concerts at Charlemont Federated Church (175 Main St.) performing the music of Ludwig van Beethoven, Kenji Bunch, and Antonin Dvořák.
The Telegraph Quartet formed in 2013 with an equal passion for standard and contemporary chamber music repertoire. Described by the San Francisco Chronicle as, “an incredibly valuable addition to the cultural landscape” and “powerfully adept… with a combination of brilliance and subtlety,” the Telegraph Quartet was awarded the prestigious 2016 Walter W. Naumburg Chamber Music Award and the Grand Prize at the 2014 Fischoff Chamber Music Competition.
For this performance, the award-winning quartet will perform an array of works shaped by a mix of personal relationships, cultural experiences, and stylistic adventurousness. The last of Beethoven’s first six string quartets owes its wit, levity, and exploratory nature to Beethoven’s teacher Josef Haydn, the grandfather of the quartet. Though Beethoven and Haydn often clashed over their styles, later in life, Beethoven would acknowledge his musical debt to Haydn and the evolution of his quartets from their Haydn-esque beginnings. American composer Kenji Bunch’s third string quartet, Apocryphal Dances, is inspired by 17th century French dance music but the 12 minute work is not written with ardent fixation on the style. Bunch’s intent is for a light and lively experience between the performance of the quartet and the listening audience. Shifts in the melody, chord progressions, and rhythmic structure lead the work to reflect qualities of various musical styles. Dvořák crafted his String Quartet No. 14 in A flat-major –– his final chamber piece –– in two stages: starting around March 1895 when he was scheduled to depart the United States to return to his homeland and then revisiting the work in December 1895, after writing his Quartet in G Major. He finished the A flat-major in just under three weeks and the music largely reflects Dvořák’s spiritual temperament during this time, which was one of uplifting positivity and joy.
The Telegraph Quartet’s latest album, 20th Century Vantage Points: Divergent Paths, was released on in 2023 on Azica Records. The first in the Telegraph’s three-album series focused on string quartets of the first half of the 20th century, Divergent Paths explores the bewildering and unbridled creativity of the period through the music of Arnold Schoenberg and Maurice Ravel, whose music on this album weaves threads of great contrast and surprising similarity. The album has been met with critical acclaim, with The New York Times reporting, “[I]n the Schoenberg, they achieve something truly special, meticulously guiding its often wayward progress. At times Schoenberg makes the four strings sound almost orchestral, but the Telegraph players can also make his contrapuntal tangles radiantly clear. Every minute of their account sounds gripping and purposeful, which is one of the highest compliments you can pay the piece.”
More about Telegraph Quartet: The Telegraph Quartet has performed in New York City’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, San Francisco’s Herbst Theatre, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music’s Chamber Masters Series, and at festivals including the Chautauqua Institute, Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival, and the Emilia Romagna Festival. They have collaborated with pianists Leon Fleisher and Simone Dinnerstein; cellists Norman Fischer and Bonnie Hampton; violinist Ian Swensen; composer-vocalist Theo Bleckmann; St. Lawrence Quartet, and the Henschel Quartett. A fervent champion of 20th- and 21st-century repertoire, the Telegraph Quartet has premiered works by John Harbison, Osvaldo Golijov, Robert Sirota, and Richard Festinger. In 2018 the Quartet released its debut album, Into the Light, featuring works by Anton Webern, Benjamin Britten, and Leon Kirchner on the Centaur label. The Telegraph Quartet released its new album, 20th Century Vantage Points: Divergent Paths––which features Ravel’s renowned quartet and Schoenberg’s first quartet––on August 25 via Azica Records.
Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, the Quartet is currently on the chamber music faculty at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music as the Quartet-in-Residence and has given master classes at the SFCM Collegiate and Pre-College Divisions, through the Morrison Artist Series at San Francisco State University, and abroad at the Taipei National University of the Arts, National Taiwan Normal University, and in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Telegraph has also served as artists-in-residence at the Interlochen Adult Chamber Music Camp, SoCal Chamber Music Workshop, and Crowden Music Center Chamber Music Workshop. In November 2020, the Telegraph Quartet launched ChamberFEAST!, a chamber music workshop in Taiwan and in fall 2020, Telegraph launched an online video project called TeleLab, in which the ensemble collectively breaks down the components of a movement from various works for quartet.
For more information, visit www.telegraphquartet.com.
For Calendar Editors:
Concert details:
Who: Telegraph Quartet
Presented by Mohawk Trail Concerts
What: Music by Ludwig van Beethoven, Kenji Bunch, and Antonin Dvořák
When: Saturday, July 6, 2024 at 5:00pm
Where: Charlemont Federated Church, 175 Main St., Charlemont, MA 01339
Tickets and information: www.mohawktrailconcerts.org/2024-season
Description: The award-winning Telegraph Quartet, described by The New York Times as being “full of elegance and pinpoint control,” is presented in concert by Mohawk Trail Concerts on Saturday, July 6, 2024 at 5pm. The Bay Area ensemble will perform a concert program featuring works that are greatly shaped by the composers’ personal experiences and relationships, written from the 19th to the 21st centuries: Ludwig van Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 6 in B-flat Major, Op. 18 No. 6 (1798-1800), Kenji Bunch’s String Quartet No. 3 (2017), and Antonin Dvořák’s String Quartet No. 14 in A-flat Major, Op. 105 B. 193 (1895).\
Short description: The Telegraph Quartet, which is described as “full of elegance and pinpoint control” (The New York Times), is presented in concert by Mohawk Trail Concerts on Saturday, July 6, 2024 at 5pm. The ensemble will perform the music of Ludwig van Beethoven, Kenji Bunch, and Antonin Dvořák.
July 11: Telegraph Quartet Performs on Morris Museum’s Celebrated Lot of Strings Music Festival – Part of Morris Museum’s Summer Outdoor Concerts on the Back Deck Series
Telegraph Quartet Performs on Morris Museum’s Celebrated Lot of Strings Music Festival
Available in high resolution at: www.jensenartists.com/artists-profiles/telegraph-quartet
Telegraph Quartet Performs on
Morris Museum’s Celebrated Lot of Strings Music Festival
Part of Morris Museum’s
Summer Outdoor Concerts on the Back Deck Series
Thursday, July 11, 2024 at 7:30pm
Morris Museum’s Outdoor Concerts on the Back Deck
6 Normandy Heights Road | Morristown, NJ
“soulfulness, tonal beauty and intelligent attention to detail ... an incredibly valuable addition to the cultural landscape.” – San Francisco Chronicle
Morristown, NJ – On Thursday, July 11, 2024 at 7:30pm, the San Francisco-based Telegraph Quartet (Eric Chin and Joseph Maile, violins; Pei-Ling Lin, viola; Jeremiah Shaw, cello), a group described by The Strad as having "precise tuning, textural variety and impassioned communication,” returns to the Morris Museum (6 Normandy Heights) to perform on the Museum’s celebrated Lot of Strings Music Festival, part of its annual Outdoor Concerts on the Back Deck series, in music by Ludwig van Beethoven, Kenji Bunch, and Antonin Dvořák. Patrons are invited to bring their chairs and picnics to the Morris Museum’s elevated parking deck, and find out why The New York Times said it made it “Joyous to be in Jersey” as they watch the sunset on the hills of Morris County during the concert. Guests may arrive at 6pm to set up and enjoy their refreshments.
The Telegraph Quartet, which last performed as part of the Lot of Strings Music Festival in 2022, formed in 2013 with an equal passion for standard and contemporary chamber music repertoire. Described by the San Francisco Chronicle as, “an incredibly valuable addition to the cultural landscape” and “powerfully adept… with a combination of brilliance and subtlety,” the Telegraph Quartet was awarded the prestigious 2016 Walter W. Naumburg Chamber Music Award and the Grand Prize at the 2014 Fischoff Chamber Music Competition.
At the Morris Museum, the award-winning quartet will perform an array of works shaped by a mix of personal relationships, cultural experiences, and stylistic adventurousness. The last of Beethoven’s first six string quartets owes its wit, levity, and exploratory nature to Beethoven’s teacher Josef Haydn, the grandfather of the quartet. Though Beethoven and Haydn often clashed over their styles, later in life, Beethoven would acknowledge his musical debt to Haydn and the evolution of his quartets from their Haydn-esque beginnings. American composer Kenji Bunch’s third string quartet, Apocryphal Dances, is inspired by 17th century French dance music but the twelve minute work is not written with ardent fixation on the style. Bunch’s intent is for a light and lively experience between the performance of the quartet and the listening audience. Shifts in the melody, chord progressions, and rhythmic structure lead the work to reflect qualities of various musical styles. Dvořák crafted his String Quartet No. 14 in A flat-major –– his final chamber piece –– in two stages: starting around March 1895 when he was scheduled to depart the United States to return to his homeland and then revisiting the work in December 1895, after writing his Quartet in G Major. He finished the A flat-major in just under three weeks and the music largely reflects Dvořák’s spiritual temperament during this time, which was one of uplifting positivity and joy.
The Telegraph Quartet’s latest album, 20th Century Vantage Points: Divergent Paths, was released in 2023 on Azica Records. The first in the Telegraph’s three-album series focused on string quartets of the first half of the 20th century, Divergent Paths explores the bewildering and unbridled creativity of the period through the music of Arnold Schoenberg and Maurice Ravel, whose music on this album weaves threads of great contrast and surprising similarity. The album has been met with critical acclaim, with The New York Times reporting, “[I]n the Schoenberg, they achieve something truly special, meticulously guiding its often wayward progress. At times Schoenberg makes the four strings sound almost orchestral, but the Telegraph players can also make his contrapuntal tangles radiantly clear. Every minute of their account sounds gripping and purposeful, which is one of the highest compliments you can pay the piece.”
More about Telegraph Quartet: The Telegraph Quartet has performed in New York City’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, San Francisco’s Herbst Theatre, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music’s Chamber Masters Series, and at festivals including the Chautauqua Institute, Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival, and the Emilia Romagna Festival. They have collaborated with pianists Leon Fleisher and Simone Dinnerstein; cellists Norman Fischer and Bonnie Hampton; violinist Ian Swensen; composer-vocalist Theo Bleckmann; St. Lawrence Quartet, and the Henschel Quartett. A fervent champion of 20th- and 21st-century repertoire, the Telegraph Quartet has premiered works by John Harbison, Osvaldo Golijov, Robert Sirota, and Richard Festinger. In 2018 the Quartet released its debut album, Into the Light, featuring works by Anton Webern, Benjamin Britten, and Leon Kirchner on the Centaur label. The Telegraph Quartet released its new album, 20th Century Vantage Points: Divergent Paths––which features Ravel’s renowned quartet and Schoenberg’s first quartet––on August 25 via Azica Records.
Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, the Quartet is currently on the chamber music faculty at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music as the Quartet-in-Residence and has given master classes at the SFCM Collegiate and Pre-College Divisions, through the Morrison Artist Series at San Francisco State University, and abroad at the Taipei National University of the Arts, National Taiwan Normal University, and in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Telegraph has also served as artists-in-residence at the Interlochen Adult Chamber Music Camp, SoCal Chamber Music Workshop, and Crowden Music Center Chamber Music Workshop. In November 2020, the Telegraph Quartet launched ChamberFEAST!, a chamber music workshop in Taiwan and in fall 2020, Telegraph launched an online video project called TeleLab, in which the ensemble collectively breaks down the components of a movement from various works for quartet.
For more information, visit www.telegraphquartet.com.
For Calendar Editors:
Concert details:
Who: Telegraph Quartet
Presented by Morris Museum’s Lot of Strings Music Festival
What: Music by Ludwig van Beethoven, Kenji Bunch, and Antonin Dvořák
When: Thursday, July 11, 2024 at 7:30pm
Where: Outdoors on the Morris Museum’s elevated parking deck, 6 Normandy Heights Road, Morristown, NJ
Tickets and information: morrismuseum.org/telegraph
Description: The award-winning Telegraph Quartet, described by The New York Times as being “full of elegance and pinpoint control,” is presented by the Morris Museum, as part of its Lot of Strings Music Festival and annual Back Deck outdoor concert series, on Thursday, July 11, 2024 at 7:30pm. The Bay Area ensemble will perform an outdoor concert featuring works that are greatly shaped by the composers’ personal experiences and relationships, written from the 19th to the 21st centuries: Ludwig van Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 6 in B-flat Major, Op. 18 No. 6 (1798-1800), Kenji Bunch’s String Quartet No. 3 (2017), and Antonin Dvořák’s String Quartet No. 14 in A-flat Major, Op. 105 B. 193 (1895).
Short description: The Telegraph Quartet, which is described as “full of elegance and pinpoint control” (The New York Times), is presented by the Morris Museum for The Back Deck Series as part of its Lot of Strings Music Festival, on Thursday, July 11, 2024 at 7:30pm. The ensemble will perform the music of Ludwig van Beethoven, Kenji Bunch, and Antonin Dvořák.
May 4 & 7: Telegraph Quartet Presented by Berkeley Chamber Performances in Two Concerts
Telegraph Quartet Presented by Berkeley Chamber Performances in Two Concerts
Photo of the Telegraph Quartet by Lisa Marie Mazzucco available in high resolution at: www.jensenartists.com/artists-profiles/telegraph-quartet
Telegraph Quartet Presented by
Berkeley Chamber Performances on May 4 and 7
Performing the Music of
Fanny Mendelssohn, Kenji Bunch, and Antonin Dvořák
Saturday, May 4, 2024 at 7:30pm
Lafayette Library | 3491 Mount Diablo Blvd. | Lafayette, CA
Tuesday, May 7, 2024 at 7:30pm
Berkeley City Club | 2315 Durant Ave. 2nd floor | Berkeley, CA
New Album: Divergent Paths (Azica Records)
Available Now
“The programming … bespeaks a wonderful boldness of spirit, and the [Quartet’s] performances, which are vibrant and full of exploratory fervor, follow through beautifully.” – San Francisco Chronicle
Berkeley, CA – The San Francisco-based Telegraph Quartet (Eric Chin and Joseph Maile, violins; Pei-Ling Lin, viola; Jeremiah Shaw, cello), a group described by The Strad as having "precise tuning, textural variety and impassioned communication,” will be presented in concert by Berkeley Chamber Performances on Saturday, May 4 at Lafayette Library (3491 Mount Diablo Blvd.) and Tuesday, May 7, 2024 at the Berkeley City Club (2315 Durant Ave. 2nd floor), performing the music of Fanny Mendelssohn, Kenji Bunch, and Antonin Dvořák.
The Telegraph Quartet formed in 2013 with an equal passion for standard and contemporary chamber music repertoire. Described by the San Francisco Chronicle as, “an incredibly valuable addition to the cultural landscape” and “powerfully adept… with a combination of brilliance and subtlety,” the Telegraph Quartet was awarded the prestigious 2016 Walter W. Naumburg Chamber Music Award and the Grand Prize at the 2014 Fischoff Chamber Music Competition. For these two concerts, the award-winning quartet will perform an array of works shaped by a mix of personal relationships, cultural experiences, and stylistic adventurousness.
Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel wrote her String Quartet in the shadow of her highly praised brother Felix, taking a bold step and ultimately choosing to embrace her own musical voice rather than defer to a style or form that would have been more accepted by her sibling and long-time musical confidant. American composer Kenji Bunch’s third string quartet, Apocryphal Dances, is inspired by 17th century French dance music but the 12 minute work is not written with ardent fixation on the style. Bunch’s intent is for a light and lively experience between the performance of the quartet and the listening audience. Shifts in the melody, chord progressions, and rhythmic structure lead the work to reflect qualities of various musical styles. Dvořák crafted his String Quartet No. 14 in A flat-major –– his final chamber piece –– in two stages: starting around March 1895 when he was scheduled to depart the United States to return to his homeland and then revisiting the work in December 1895, after writing his Quartet in G Major. He finished the A flat-major in just under three weeks and the music largely reflects Dvořák’s spiritual temperament during this time, which was one of uplifting positivity and joy
The Telegraph Quartet’s latest album, 20th Century Vantage Points: Divergent Paths, was released on August 25 via Azica Records. The first in the Telegraph’s three-album series focused on string quartets of the first half of the 20th century, Divergent Paths explores the bewildering and unbridled creativity of the period through the music of Arnold Schoenberg and Maurice Ravel, whose music on this album weaves threads of great contrast and surprising similarity. The album has been met with critical acclaim, with The New York Times reporting, “[I]n the Schoenberg, they achieve something truly special, meticulously guiding its often wayward progress. At times Schoenberg makes the four strings sound almost orchestral, but the Telegraph players can also make his contrapuntal tangles radiantly clear. Every minute of their account sounds gripping and purposeful, which is one of the highest compliments you can pay the piece.”
More about Telegraph Quartet: The Telegraph Quartet has performed in New York City’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, San Francisco’s Herbst Theatre, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music’s Chamber Masters Series, and at festivals including the Chautauqua Institute, Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival, and the Emilia Romagna Festival. They have collaborated with pianists Leon Fleisher and Simone Dinnerstein; cellists Norman Fischer and Bonnie Hampton; violinist Ian Swensen; composer-vocalist Theo Bleckmann; St. Lawrence Quartet, and the Henschel Quartett. A fervent champion of 20th- and 21st-century repertoire, the Telegraph Quartet has premiered works by John Harbison, Osvaldo Golijov, Robert Sirota, and Richard Festinger. In 2018 the Quartet released its debut album, Into the Light, featuring works by Anton Webern, Benjamin Britten, and Leon Kirchner on the Centaur label. The Telegraph Quartet released its new album, 20th Century Vantage Points: Divergent Paths––which features Ravel’s renowned quartet and Schoenberg’s first quartet––on August 25 via Azica Records.
Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, the Quartet is currently on the chamber music faculty at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music as the Quartet-in-Residence and has given master classes at the SFCM Collegiate and Pre-College Divisions, through the Morrison Artist Series at San Francisco State University, and abroad at the Taipei National University of the Arts, National Taiwan Normal University, and in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Telegraph has also served as artists-in-residence at the Interlochen Adult Chamber Music Camp, SoCal Chamber Music Workshop, and Crowden Music Center Chamber Music Workshop. In November 2020, the Telegraph Quartet launched ChamberFEAST!, a chamber music workshop in Taiwan and in fall 2020, Telegraph launched an online video project called TeleLab, in which the ensemble collectively breaks down the components of a movement from various works for quartet.
For more information, visit www.telegraphquartet.com.
For Calendar Editors:
Description: The award-winning Telegraph Quartet, described by The New York Times as being “full of elegance and pinpoint control,” is presented in two performances by Berkeley Chamber Performances on Saturday, May 4 and Tuesday May 7, 2024, at 7:30pm. The Bay Area ensemble performs music heavily shaped by the composers’ personal experiences and relationships, written in the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries: Fanny Mendelssohn’s String Quartet (1834), Kenji Bunch’s String Quartet No. 3 (2017), and Antonin Dvořák’s String Quartet No. 14 in A-flat Major, Op. 105 B. 193 (1895).
Short description: The Telegraph Quartet, an ensemble “full of elegance and pinpoint control” (The New York Times), is presented in two concerts by Berkeley Chamber Performances on Saturday May 4 and Tuesday May 7, 2024, at 7:30pm. For each concert, the ensemble will perform the music of Fanny Mendelssohn, Kenji Bunch, and Antonin Dvořák.
Concert details:
Who: Telegraph Quartet
Presented by Berkeley Chamber Performances
What: Music by Fanny Mendelssohn, Kenji Bunch, and Antonin Dvořák
When & Where:
Saturday, May 4, 2024 at 7:30pm
Lafayette Library, 3491 Mount Diablo Blvd., Lafayette, CA 94549
Tuesday May 7, 2024 at 7:30pm
Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave 2nd floor, Berkeley, CA 94704
Tickets and information: www.berkeleychamberperform.org/telegraph-quartet
May 19: Telegraph Quartet Presented by Neskowin Chamber Music Performing the Music of Fanny Mendelssohn, Kenji Bunch, and Antonin Dvořák
Telegraph Quartet Presented by Neskowin Chamber Music Performing the Music of Fanny Mendelssohn, Kenji Bunch, and Antonin Dvořák
Available in high resolution at: www.jensenartists.com/artists-profiles/telegraph-quartet
Telegraph Quartet Presented by Neskowin Chamber Music
Performing the Music of
Fanny Mendelssohn, Kenji Bunch, and Antonin Dvořák
Sunday, May 19, 2024 at 3pm
The Chapel at Camp Wi-Ne-Ma | 5195 Wi Ne Ma Road | Cloverdale, OR
Tickets and More information
New Album: Divergent Paths (Azica Records)
Available Now
“full of elegance and pinpoint control” – The New York Times
Cloverdale, OR – On Sunday, May 19, 2024, the San Francisco-based Telegraph Quartet (Eric Chin and Joseph Maile, violins; Pei-Ling Lin, viola; Jeremiah Shaw, cello), a group described by The Strad as having "precise tuning, textural variety and impassioned communication,” will be presented in concert by Neskowin Chamber Music at The Chapel at Camp Wi-Ne-Ma (5195 Wi Ne Ma Road) performing the music of Fanny Mendelssohn, Kenji Bunch, and Antonin Dvořák.
The Telegraph Quartet formed in 2013 with an equal passion for standard and contemporary chamber music repertoire. Described by the San Francisco Chronicle as, “an incredibly valuable addition to the cultural landscape” and “powerfully adept… with a combination of brilliance and subtlety,” the Telegraph Quartet was awarded the prestigious 2016 Walter W. Naumburg Chamber Music Award and the Grand Prize at the 2014 Fischoff Chamber Music Competition. For this performance, the award-winning quartet will perform an array of works shaped by a mix of personal relationships, cultural experiences, and stylistic adventurousness.
Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel wrote her String Quartet in the shadow of her highly praised brother Felix, taking a bold step and ultimately choosing to embrace her own musical voice rather than defer to a style or form that would have been more accepted by her sibling and long-time musical confidant. American composer Kenji Bunch’s third string quartet, Apocryphal Dances, is inspired by 17th century French dance music but the 12 minute work is not written with ardent fixation on the style. Bunch’s intent is for a light and lively experience between the performance of the quartet and the listening audience. Shifts in the melody, chord progressions, and rhythmic structure lead the work to reflect qualities of various musical styles. Dvořák crafted his String Quartet No. 14 in A flat-major –– his final chamber piece –– in two stages: starting around March 1895 when he was scheduled to depart the United States to return to his homeland and then revisiting the work in December 1895, after writing his Quartet in G Major. He finished the A flat-major in just under three weeks and the music largely reflects Dvořák’s spiritual temperament during this time, which was one of uplifting positivity and joy
The Telegraph Quartet’s latest album, 20th Century Vantage Points: Divergent Paths, was released on August 25 via Azica Records. The first in the Telegraph’s three-album series focused on string quartets of the first half of the 20th century, Divergent Paths explores the bewildering and unbridled creativity of the period through the music of Arnold Schoenberg and Maurice Ravel, whose music on this album weaves threads of great contrast and surprising similarity. The album has been met with critical acclaim, with The New York Times reporting, “[I]n the Schoenberg, they achieve something truly special, meticulously guiding its often wayward progress. At times Schoenberg makes the four strings sound almost orchestral, but the Telegraph players can also make his contrapuntal tangles radiantly clear. Every minute of their account sounds gripping and purposeful, which is one of the highest compliments you can pay the piece.”
More about Telegraph Quartet: The Telegraph Quartet has performed in New York City’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, San Francisco’s Herbst Theatre, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music’s Chamber Masters Series, and at festivals including the Chautauqua Institute, Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival, and the Emilia Romagna Festival. They have collaborated with pianists Leon Fleisher and Simone Dinnerstein; cellists Norman Fischer and Bonnie Hampton; violinist Ian Swensen; composer-vocalist Theo Bleckmann; St. Lawrence Quartet, and the Henschel Quartett. A fervent champion of 20th- and 21st-century repertoire, the Telegraph Quartet has premiered works by John Harbison, Osvaldo Golijov, Robert Sirota, and Richard Festinger. In 2018 the Quartet released its debut album, Into the Light, featuring works by Anton Webern, Benjamin Britten, and Leon Kirchner on the Centaur label. The Telegraph Quartet released its new album, 20th Century Vantage Points: Divergent Paths––which features Ravel’s renowned quartet and Schoenberg’s first quartet––on August 25 via Azica Records.
Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, the Quartet is currently on the chamber music faculty at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music as the Quartet-in-Residence and has given master classes at the SFCM Collegiate and Pre-College Divisions, through the Morrison Artist Series at San Francisco State University, and abroad at the Taipei National University of the Arts, National Taiwan Normal University, and in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Telegraph has also served as artists-in-residence at the Interlochen Adult Chamber Music Camp, SoCal Chamber Music Workshop, and Crowden Music Center Chamber Music Workshop. In November 2020, the Telegraph Quartet launched ChamberFEAST!, a chamber music workshop in Taiwan and in fall 2020, Telegraph launched an online video project called TeleLab, in which the ensemble collectively breaks down the components of a movement from various works for quartet.
For more information, visit www.telegraphquartet.com.
For Calendar Editors:
Description: The award-winning Telegraph Quartet, described by The New York Times as being “full of elegance and pinpoint control,” is presented in concert by Neskowin Chamber Music on Sunday, May 19, 2024 at 3pm. The Bay Area ensemble will perform a concert program featuring works that are greatly shaped by the composers’ personal experiences and relationships, written from the 19th to the 21st centuries: Fanny Mendelssohn’s String Quartet (1834), Kenji Bunch’s String Quartet No. 3 (2017), and Antonin Dvořák’s String Quartet No. 14 in A-flat Major, Op. 105 B. 193 (1895).
Short description: The Telegraph Quartet, which is described as “full of elegance and pinpoint control” (The New York Times), is presented in concert by Neskowin Chamber Music on Sunday, May 19, 2024 at 3pm. The ensemble will perform the music of Fanny Mendelssohn, Kenji Bunch, and Antonin Dvořák.
Concert details:
Who: Telegraph Quartet
Presented by Neskowin Chamber Music
What: Music by Fanny Mendelssohn, Kenji Bunch, and Antonin Dvořák
When: Sunday, May 19, 2024 at 3pm
Where: The Chapel at Camp Wi-Ne-Ma; 5195 Wi Ne Ma Road; Cloverdale, OR 97112
Tickets and information: www.neskowinchambermusic.com/2023-2024-season.html
April 2: Telegraph Quartet Presented by Lebanon Valley College Performing the Music of George Walker and Antonin Dvořák
Telegraph Quartet Presented by Lebanon Valley College Performing the Music of George Walker and Antonin Dvořák
Available in high resolution at: www.jensenartists.com/artists-profiles/telegraph-quartet
Telegraph Quartet Presented by Lebanon Valley College
Performing the Music of
George Walker and Antonin Dvořák
Tuesday, April 2, 2024 at 7:30pm
Lutz Recital Hall at Blair Music Center
101 College Ave. | Annville, PA
Free and Open to the Public - More Information
New Album: Divergent Paths (Azica Records)
Available Now
“full of elegance and pinpoint control” – The New York Times
Annville, PA – On Tuesday, April 2, 2024, the San Francisco-based Telegraph Quartet (Eric Chin and Joseph Maile, violins; Pei-Ling Lin, viola; Jeremiah Shaw, cello), a group described by The Strad as having "precise tuning, textural variety and impassioned communication,” will be presented in concert by Lebanon Valley College performing the music of George Walker and Antonin Dvořák. The concert is free and open to the public.
George Walker’s sublime Lyric is an emotive and moving tribute to his grandmother, Melvina King, and was first published as part of his String Quartet No.1. Walker composed his first quartet in a neo-romantic style when he was 23 years old, at a time when classical music in America was turning toward a more severe, mathematical approach. Dvořák crafted his String Quartet No. 14 in A flat-major –– his final chamber piece –– in two stages: starting around March 1895 when he was scheduled to depart the United States to return to his homeland and then revisiting the work in December 1895, after writing his Quartet in G Major. He finished the A flat-major in just under three weeks and the music largely reflects Dvořák’s spiritual temperament during this time, which was one of uplifting positivity and joy
Telegraph Quartet says of performing the historically and culturally complex music in this program:
“When Dvorak came to the U.S. to be the director of the National Conservatory of Music, he spent three years exploring the culture and folk music here and encouraged his American colleagues to use their own folk music as the foundation for a distinct American style, just as he had succeeded in doing for Bohemia. He placed a great emphasis specifically on the music of Native American and African American folk music from which he felt American composers should draw their inspiration and began his last string quartet at the end of his famed visit. A half century later, in spite of all of the societal barriers thrown in his and his ancestors’ paths, we find George Walker, an African American composer of great talent and skill forging his own style and voice in his String Quartet No. 1. While it does not overtly heed Dvorak’s advice of building its foundation on American folk music per se, it does exude a distinctly American and modern style, full of haunting lyricism and defiantly sinewy harmonies that respectively entice and demand the attention of the listener.”
The Telegraph Quartet’s latest album, 20th Century Vantage Points: Divergent Paths, was released on August 25 via Azica Records. The first in the Telegraph’s three-album series focused on string quartets of the first half of the 20th century, Divergent Paths explores the bewildering and unbridled creativity of the period through the music of Arnold Schoenberg and Maurice Ravel, whose music on this album weaves threads of great contrast and surprising similarity. The album has been met with critical acclaim, with The New York Times reporting, “[I]n the Schoenberg, they achieve something truly special, meticulously guiding its often wayward progress. At times Schoenberg makes the four strings sound almost orchestral, but the Telegraph players can also make his contrapuntal tangles radiantly clear. Every minute of their account sounds gripping and purposeful, which is one of the highest compliments you can pay the piece.”
About Telegraph Quartet: The Telegraph Quartet (Eric Chin and Joseph Maile, violins; Pei-Ling Lin, viola; Jeremiah Shaw, cello) formed in 2013 with an equal passion for standard and contemporary chamber music repertoire. Described by the San Francisco Chronicle as, “an incredibly valuable addition to the cultural landscape” and “powerfully adept… with a combination of brilliance and subtlety,” the Telegraph Quartet was awarded the prestigious 2016 Walter W. Naumburg Chamber Music Award and the Grand Prize at the 2014 Fischoff Chamber Music Competition.
The Quartet has performed in New York City’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, San Francisco’s Herbst Theatre, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music’s Chamber Masters Series, and at festivals including the Chautauqua Institute, Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival, and the Emilia Romagna Festival. They have collaborated with pianists Leon Fleisher and Simone Dinnerstein; cellists Norman Fischer and Bonnie Hampton; violinist Ian Swensen; composer-vocalist Theo Bleckmann; St. Lawrence Quartet, and the Henschel Quartett. A fervent champion of 20th- and 21st-century repertoire, the Telegraph Quartet has premiered works by John Harbison, Osvaldo Golijov, Robert Sirota, and Richard Festinger. In 2018 the Quartet released its debut album, Into the Light, featuring works by Anton Webern, Benjamin Britten, and Leon Kirchner on the Centaur label. The Telegraph Quartet released its new album, 20th Century Vantage Points: Divergent Paths––which features Ravel’s renowned quartet and Schoenberg’s first quartet––on August 25 via Azica Records.
Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, the Quartet is currently on the chamber music faculty at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music as the Quartet-in-Residence and has given master classes at the SFCM Collegiate and Pre-College Divisions, through the Morrison Artist Series at San Francisco State University, and abroad at the Taipei National University of the Arts, National Taiwan Normal University, and in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Telegraph has also served as artists-in-residence at the Interlochen Adult Chamber Music Camp, SoCal Chamber Music Workshop, and Crowden Music Center Chamber Music Workshop. In November 2020, the Telegraph Quartet launched ChamberFEAST!, a chamber music workshop in Taiwan and in fall 2020, Telegraph launched an online video project called TeleLab, in which the ensemble collectively breaks down the components of a movement from various works for quartet.
For more information, visit www.telegraphquartet.com.
About Lebanon Valley College: Lebanon Valley College educates students for lifelong success through exceptional undergraduate liberal arts programs and professional graduate programs delivered in an engaging and supportive academic and co-curricular environment. We educate our students to think critically and creatively, analyze and address complex issues, and communicate effectively. We guide them in deepening their commitment to inclusion, civic engagement, and global citizenship.
For Calendar Editors:
Description: The award-winning Telegraph Quartet, described by The New York Times as being “full of elegance and pinpoint control,” is presented in concert by Lebanon Valley College on Tuesday, April 2, 2024 at 7:30pm. The Bay Area ensemble will perform a program that features two works deeply shaped by personal experiences and relationships, written in the 19th and 20th centuries: George Walker’s String Quartet No. 1 Lyric (1946) and Dvořák’s String Quartet No. 14 in A-flat Major, Op. 105 B. 193 (1895).
Short description: The Telegraph Quartet, which is described as “full of elegance and pinpoint control” (The New York Times), is presented in concert by Lebanon Valley College on Tuesday, April 2, 2024 at 7:30pm. The ensemble will perform the music of Walker and Dvořák.
Concert details:
Who: Telegraph Quartet
Presented by Lebanon Valley College
What: Music by Walker and Dvořák
When: Tuesday, April 2, 2024 at 7:30pm
Where: Lutz Recital Hall at Blair Music Center, 101 College Ave., Annville, PA 17003
Tickets and information: www.lvc.edu/events/burgner-series-telegraph-quartet/
Robert Sirota: The String Quartets Presented by the Kaufman Music Center Featuring the American String Quartet, Telegraph Quartet, and Soprano Abigail Fischer
Robert Sirota: The String Quartets, Presented by the Kaufman Music Center and Featuring the American String Quartet, Telegraph Quartet, and Soprano Abigail Fischer
Photo by Ryuhei Shindo available in high resolution at: www.jensenartists.com/artists-profiles/robert-sirota
Robert Sirota: The String Quartets
Presented by the Kaufman Music Center
Featuring the American String Quartet, Telegraph Quartet, and Soprano Abigail Fischer
Thursday, April 11, 2024 at 7:30pm
Merkin Hall at Kaufman Music Center | 129 W 67th St. | New York, NY
“Sirota’s musical language is personal and undogmatic, in the sense that instead of aligning himself with any of the competing contemporary styles, he follows his own internal musical compass.” – Allan Kozinn, The Portland Press Herald
New York, NY – On Sunday, April 11, 2024 at 7:30pm, Kaufman Music Center will present Robert Sirota: The String Quartets, featuring the American String Quartet and the Telegraph Quartet with soprano Abigail Fischer, performing Sirota’s complete works for string quartet thus far. For the first time ever, Sirota's four string quartets –– each of which he describes as “in essence a long journal entry reflecting a response to our times" –– will be heard together in one concert program: Triptych (2002), American Pilgrimage (2016) Wave Upon Wave (2017) and the New York premiere of Contrapassos for soprano and string quartet (2019) with text by Stevan Cavalier.
Over five decades, composer Robert Sirota has developed a distinctive voice, clearly discernible in all of his work – whether symphonic, choral, stage, or chamber music. Writing in the Portland Press Herald, Allan Kozinn asserts: “Sirota’s musical language is personal and undogmatic, in the sense that instead of aligning himself with any of the competing contemporary styles, he follows his own internal musical compass.
Robert Sirota's impressive catalog of composed work evokes a wide range of emotion that touches on several aspects of the human experience. He says of this collaborative performance and the highlighting of his string quartets:
“I am so looking forward to hearing this significant body of work performed in a single evening by great musicians I have worked with for many years.” .
In response to the calamitous events of September 11, 2001, Sirota wrote Triptych –– the first of what would become a trilogy of string quartets. The work is meant as a commemorative tribute to all those lost on the day of the attacks. The composition was written in conjunction with a painting of the same name by artist Deborah Patterson. Following the premiere of Triptych in September of 2002 at Trinity Church Wall Street, Lucid Culture called the performance "viscerally harrowing,” "impactful," and "riveting."
American Pilgrimage was written by Sirota for the American String Quartet. Though initially reluctant to write another string quartet following Triptych, Sirota found his inner vision for the new piece, calling American Pilgrimage “a true companion” to Triptych. The raw material of the work is derived from four sources: Protestant hymnody, Gospel music, Native American songs, and jazz. The Arts Fuse describes the American String Quartet's premiere recording of American Pilgrimage as “compelling and invigorating.”
Wave Upon Wave is the final piece in the trilogy of quartets that Sirota began with Triptych in 2002. Sirota explains that the quartet is about human hopes, and fears, as well as “prayers that we will triumph over the forces of darkness which threaten to overwhelm us.” Fittingly, The New York Music Daily describes the work as “a search for hope within the human soul.”
After several postponements of its 2020 premiere due to the pandemic, Contrapassos' long awaited debut was presented in July 2022 by the Sierra Chamber Society. With text by librettist Stevan Cavalier and vocals by soprano Abigail Fischer –– a dear, long-time friend of Sirota's –– the 24-minute work for string quartet and soprano reflects a seamless collaboration between poetry, vocal, and instrumental music, inspired by the imagery of Dante. This concert will mark its New York premiere.
More about Robert Sirota: Robert Sirota’s works have been performed by orchestras across the US and Europe; ensembles such as Alarm Will Sound, Sequitur, yMusic, Chameleon Arts, and Dinosaur Annex; Concerts on the Slope; the Chiara, American, Ethel, Elmyr, Blair and Telegraph String Quartets; the Peabody, Concord, and Webster Trios; and at festivals including Tanglewood, Aspen, Yellow Barn, and Cooperstown; Bowdoin Gamper and Bowdoin International Music Festival; and Mizzou International Composers Festival. Recent commissions include Jeffrey Kahane and the Sarasota Music Festival, Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, Palladium Musicum, American Guild of Organists, the American String Quartet, Alarm Will Sound, the Naumburg Foundation, and yMusic, Thomas Pellaton, Carol Wincenc, Linda Chesis, Trinity Episcopal Church (Indianapolis), and Sierra Chamber Society, as well as arrangements for Paul Simon.
Since 2021, Sirota has presented Muzzy Ridge Concerts, an annual series featuring performances by world-class musicians, in his home studio in Searsmont, Maine. Robert Sirota has received grants from the Guggenheim and Watson Foundations, NEA, Meet the Composer, and the American Music Center. His music is recorded on Legacy Recordings, National Sawdust Tracks, and the Capstone, Albany, New Voice, Gasparo and Crystal labels, and is published by Muzzy Ridge Music, Schott, Music Associates of New York, MorningStar, Theodore Presser, and To the Fore. For complete information, visit www.robertsirota.com.
About Telegraph Quartet
About American String Quartet
About Soprano Abigail Fischer
For Calendar Editors:
Description: On April 11, 2024, The Kaufman Music Center will present Robert Sirota: The String Quartets, a performance featuring four of the composer’s works as performed by the American String Quartet, Telegraph Quartet, and Soprano Abigail Fischer: Triptych (2002), American Pilgrimage (2016), Wave Upon Wave (2017) and the New York premiere of Contrapassos for soprano and string quartet (2019), with text by Stevan Cavalier. The Portland Press Herald describes Sirota’s works, which encompass an array of emotions and experiences, as “personal and undogmatic.”
Short description: On April 11, 2024, The Kaufman Music Center will present Robert Sirota: The String Quartets. The American String Quartet, Telegraph Quartet, and soprano Abigail Fischer will perform a program of Robert Sirota’s “personal and undogmatic” (Portland Press Herald) four string quartets: Triptych (2002), American Pilgrimage (2016) Wave Upon Wave (2017) and the New York Premiere of Contrapassos for soprano and string quartet (2019).
Concert details:
What: Robert Sirota: The String Quartets
Who: Telegraph Quartet, American String Quartet, and Soprano Abigail Fischer
Presented by Kaufman Music Center
When: Thursday, April 11, 2023 at 7:30pm
Where: Merkin Hall at Kaufman Music Center, 129 W 67th St, New York, NY 10023
Tickets and Information: www.kaufmanmusiccenter.org/mch/event/robert-sirota-the-string-quartets
April 5: Telegraph Quartet Presented by University of Vermont Lane Series Performing the Music of Fanny Mendelssohn, George Walker, and Antonin Dvořák
Telegraph Quartet Presented by University of Vermont Lane Series Performing the Music of Fanny Mendelssohn, George Walker, and Antonin Dvořák
Available in high resolution at: www.jensenartists.com/artists-profiles/telegraph-quartet
Telegraph Quartet Presented by University of Vermont Lane Series
Performing the Music of
Fanny Mendelssohn, George Walker, and Antonin Dvořák
Friday, April 5, 2024 at 7:30pm
UVM Recital Hall | 384 South Prospect Street | Burlington, VT
Tickets & Information
New Album: Divergent Paths (Azica Records)
Available Now
“full of elegance and pinpoint control” – The New York Times
Burlington, VT – On Friday, April 5, 2024, the San Francisco-based Telegraph Quartet (Eric Chin and Joseph Maile, violins; Pei-Ling Lin, viola; Jeremiah Shaw, cello), a group described by The Strad as having "precise tuning, textural variety and impassioned communication,” will be presented in concert by the University of Vermont Lane Series. The award-winning ensemble will perform a program featuring Fanny Mendelssohn’s String Quartet, George Walker’s String Quartet No. 1 “Lyric” and Antonin Dvořák’s String Quartet No. 14 in A-flat Major, Op. 105 B. 193.
Each of the works on this program are directly shaped by significant relationships and delicate emotional connections in the composers’ lives. In hearing them together, one gets not only an artistic performance but also a glimpse into how these composers viewed their respective relationships. There’s a degree of personal intimacy one can take away from the music that extends beyond straightforward historical facts.
Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel wrote her String Quartet in the shadow of her highly praised brother Felix, taking a bold step and ultimately choosing to embrace her own musical voice rather than defer to a style or form that would have been more accepted by her sibling and long-time musical confidant. George Walker’s Lyric poses a more direct but no less meaningful interpersonal connection, as a tribute to his grandmother Melvina King. The relationship itself is obvious but what makes it even more powerful is Walker’s decision to turn away from the more widely used mathematical musical style being used in America at the time, in favor of a more emotionally driven neo-romantic style, in order to write a piece fitting of the vision Walker had for honoring King. Dvořák’s final chamber work, his String Quartet No. 14 in A flat-major, doesn’t extend ties to a specific individual the way Mendelssohn’s and Walker’s works do. However, the 1895 quartet embodies a profound relationship all the same: Dvořák’s vacillating connection to the cultures of the United States – where he wrote part of the quartet – and his love of the Bohemian culture and his home in Prague, where he eventually completed the piece. Known for their technical prowess and appreciation for the history behind music and the experiences of composers, the Telegraph Quartet will blend their own deeply forged relationships with each of these works to bring the unique ties of the songs to life with an engaging and attentive artistry.
The Telegraph Quartet’s latest album, 20th Century Vantage Points: Divergent Paths, was released on August 25 via Azica Records. The first in the Telegraph’s three-album series focused on string quartets of the first half of the 20th century, Divergent Paths explores the bewildering and unbridled creativity of the period through the music of Arnold Schoenberg and Maurice Ravel, whose music on this album weaves threads of great contrast and surprising similarity. The album has been met with critical acclaim, with The New York Times reporting, “[I]n the Schoenberg, they achieve something truly special, meticulously guiding its often wayward progress. At times Schoenberg makes the four strings sound almost orchestral, but the Telegraph players can also make his contrapuntal tangles radiantly clear. Every minute of their account sounds gripping and purposeful, which is one of the highest compliments you can pay the piece.”
More about Telegraph Quartet: Described by the San Francisco Chronicle as, “an incredibly valuable addition to the cultural landscape” and “powerfully adept… with a combination of brilliance and subtlety,” the Telegraph Quartet was awarded the prestigious 2016 Walter W. Naumburg Chamber Music Award and the Grand Prize at the 2014 Fischoff Chamber Music Competition.
The Quartet has performed in New York City’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, San Francisco’s Herbst Theatre, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music’s Chamber Masters Series, and at festivals including the Chautauqua Institute, Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival, and the Emilia Romagna Festival. They have collaborated with pianists Leon Fleisher and Simone Dinnerstein; cellists Norman Fischer and Bonnie Hampton; violinist Ian Swensen; composer-vocalist Theo Bleckmann; St. Lawrence Quartet, and the Henschel Quartett. A fervent champion of 20th- and 21st-century repertoire, the Telegraph Quartet has premiered works by John Harbison, Osvaldo Golijov, Robert Sirota, and Richard Festinger. In 2018 the Quartet released its debut album, Into the Light, featuring works by Anton Webern, Benjamin Britten, and Leon Kirchner on the Centaur label. The Telegraph Quartet released its new album, 20th Century Vantage Points: Divergent Paths––which features Ravel’s renowned quartet and Schoenberg’s first quartet––on August 25 via Azica Records.
Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, the Quartet is currently on the chamber music faculty at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music as the Quartet-in-Residence and has given master classes at the SFCM Collegiate and Pre-College Divisions, through the Morrison Artist Series at San Francisco State University, and abroad at the Taipei National University of the Arts, National Taiwan Normal University, and in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Telegraph has also served as artists-in-residence at the Interlochen Adult Chamber Music Camp, SoCal Chamber Music Workshop, and Crowden Music Center Chamber Music Workshop. In November 2020, the Telegraph Quartet launched ChamberFEAST!, a chamber music workshop in Taiwan and in fall 2020, Telegraph launched an online video project called TeleLab, in which the ensemble collectively breaks down the components of a movement from various works for quartet.
For more information, visit www.telegraphquartet.com.
About University of Vermont Lane Series: The George Bishop Lane Series was established in 1955 by a generous gift from the Lane family and has been presenting the finest in live performing arts since 1955. We have approximately 25 events a season, primarily in the comfortable, intimate, and acoustically superb UVM Recital Hall on Redstone Campus. We enjoy an international reputation as presenters of classical, jazz, folk/traditional, chamber, and choral music as well as theater, film, and dance. As a program of the University of Vermont School of the Arts , we are also dedicated to providing educational outreach to students of all ages, both on and off campus.
Serving as a link among many constituencies, the Lane Series finds its audience, volunteers, and advisors from the students, faculty, staff, and alumni of UVM as well as the community at large. In addition to the presentation of performances, the Lane Series ensures students and public direct interaction with performers through master classes, workshops, residencies, lectures, and receptions. The Lane Series is committed to a dual mission of cultural presentation and outreach, and education. Through our ARTIX program we provide free tickets to over 30 social service agencies to insure arts access to all audiences. We also offer reduced ticket prices to students.
For Calendar Editors:
Description: The award-winning Telegraph Quartet, described by The New York Times as being “full of elegance and pinpoint control,” is presented in concert by the University of Vermont Lane Series on Friday, April 5, 2024 at 7:30pm. The Bay Area ensemble will perform a program featuring three works that are shaped by immensely personal experiences and relationships, written during the 19th and 20th centuries: Fanny Mendelssohn’s String Quartet in E-flat major (1834), George Walker’s String Quartet No. 1 Lyric (1946) and Dvořák’s String Quartet No. 14 in A-flat Major, Op. 105 B. 193 (1895).
Short description: The Telegraph Quartet, which is described as “full of elegance and pinpoint control” (The New York Times), is presented in concert by Lebanon Valley College on Friday, April 5, 2024 at 7:30pm. The ensemble will perform the music of Walker and Dvořák.
Concert details:
Who: Telegraph Quartet
Presented by University of Vermont Lane Series
What: Music by Fanny Mendelssohn, George Walker, and Antonin Dvořák
When: Friday, April 5, 2024 at 7:30pm
Where: UVM Recital Hall, 384 South Prospect Street, Burlington, VT 05405
Tickets and information: www.uvm.edu/laneseries/telegraph-quartet
April 8 & 9: San Francisco's Telegraph Quartet Presented in Two Virginia Performances
Telegraph Quartet Presented in Two Virginia Performances – Performing Music by Fanny Mendelssohn, George Walker, and Antonin Dvořák
Photo of the Telegraph Quartet by Lisa Marie Mazzucco available in high resolution at: www.jensenartists.com/artists-profiles/telegraph-quartet
The Telegraph Quartet Performs in Norfolk and Williamsburg, Virginia
Performing the Music of
Fanny Mendelssohn, George Walker, and Antonin Dvořák
Monday, April 8, 2024 at 7:30pm
Kaufman Theater at Chrysler Museum of Art
1 Memorial Place | Norfolk, VA
Tickets and Information
Tuesday, April 9, 2024 at 7:30pm
Williamsburg Regional Library | 515 Scotland St. | Williamsburg, VA
Tickets and Information
New Album: Divergent Paths (Azica Records)
Available Now
“precise tuning, textural variety and impassioned communication” – The Strad
Norfolk & Williamsburg, VA – The award-winning, San Francisco-based, Telegraph Quartet (Eric Chin and Joseph Maile, violins; Pei-Ling Lin, viola; Jeremiah Shaw, cello), a group described by The Strad as having "precise tuning, textural variety and impassioned communication,” will be presented in two performances on Monday, April 8 in Norfolk, VA and Tuesday April 9 in Williamsburg, VA. For each of these concerts, the Bay area ensemble will perform a program featuring Fanny Mendelssohn’s String Quartet, George Walker’s String Quartet No. 1 “Lyric” and Antonin Dvořák’s String Quartet No. 14 in A-flat Major, Op. 105 B. 193.
On April 8 at 7:30pm, the Telegraph Quartet will be presented in concert by the Feldman Chamber Music Society at the Kaufman Theater at Chrysler Museum of Art (1 Memorial Place). Then on Tuesday April 9, the group will travel to Williamsburg where they will be presented in concert by the Chamber Music Society of Williamsburg at the Williamsburg Regional Library (515 Scotland St.).
Each of the works on the Telegraph Quartet’s program are directly shaped by significant relationships and delicate emotional connections in the composers’ lives. In hearing them together, one gets not only an artistic performance but also a glimpse into how these composers viewed their respective relationships via melodic expression. There’s a degree of personal intimacy one can take away from the music that extends beyond straightforward historical facts.
Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel wrote her String Quartet in the shadow of her highly praised brother Felix, taking a bold step and ultimately choosing to embrace her own musical voice rather than defer to a style or form that would have been more accepted by her sibling and long time musical confidant. George Walker’s Lyric poses a more direct but no less meaningful interpersonal connection, as a tribute to his grandmother Melvina King. The relationship itself is obvious but what makes it even more powerful is Walker’s decision to turn away from the more widely used mathematical musical style being used in America at the time, in favor of the more emotionally driven neo-romantic style, in order to write a piece fitting of the vision Walker had for honoring King. Dvořák’s final chamber work, his String Quartet No. 14 in A flat-major, doesn’t extend ties to a specific individual the way Mendelssohn’s and Walker’s works do. However, the 1895 quartet embodies a profound relationship all the same: Dvořák’s vacillating connection to the cultures of the United States – where he wrote part of the quartet – and his love of the Bohemian culture and his home in Prague, where he eventually completed the piece. Known for their technical prowess and appreciation for the history behind music and the experiences of composers, the Telegraph Quartet will blend their own deeply forged relationships with each of these works to bring the unique ties of each song to life with an engaging and attentive artistry.
The Telegraph Quartet’s latest album, 20th Century Vantage Points: Divergent Paths, was released on August 25 via Azica Records. The first in the Telegraph’s three-album series focused on string quartets of the first half of the 20th century, Divergent Paths explores the bewildering and unbridled creativity of the period through the music of Arnold Schoenberg and Maurice Ravel, whose music on this album weaves threads of great contrast and surprising similarity. The album has been met with critical acclaim, with The New York Times reporting, “[I]n the Schoenberg, they achieve something truly special, meticulously guiding its often wayward progress. At times Schoenberg makes the four strings sound almost orchestral, but the Telegraph players can also make his contrapuntal tangles radiantly clear. Every minute of their account sounds gripping and purposeful, which is one of the highest compliments you can pay the piece.”
More about Telegraph Quartet: Described by the San Francisco Chronicle as, “an incredibly valuable addition to the cultural landscape” and “powerfully adept… with a combination of brilliance and subtlety,” the Telegraph Quartet was awarded the prestigious 2016 Walter W. Naumburg Chamber Music Award and the Grand Prize at the 2014 Fischoff Chamber Music Competition.
The Quartet has performed in New York City’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, San Francisco’s Herbst Theatre, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music’s Chamber Masters Series, and at festivals including the Chautauqua Institute, Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival, and the Emilia Romagna Festival. They have collaborated with pianists Leon Fleisher and Simone Dinnerstein; cellists Norman Fischer and Bonnie Hampton; violinist Ian Swensen; composer-vocalist Theo Bleckmann; St. Lawrence Quartet, and the Henschel Quartett. A fervent champion of 20th- and 21st-century repertoire, the Telegraph Quartet has premiered works by John Harbison, Osvaldo Golijov, Robert Sirota, and Richard Festinger. In 2018 the Quartet released its debut album, Into the Light, featuring works by Anton Webern, Benjamin Britten, and Leon Kirchner on the Centaur label. The Telegraph Quartet released its new album, 20th Century Vantage Points: Divergent Paths––which features Ravel’s renowned quartet and Schoenberg’s first quartet––on August 25 via Azica Records.
Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, the Quartet is currently on the chamber music faculty at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music as the Quartet-in-Residence and has given master classes at the SFCM Collegiate and Pre-College Divisions, through the Morrison Artist Series at San Francisco State University, and abroad at the Taipei National University of the Arts, National Taiwan Normal University, and in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Telegraph has also served as artists-in-residence at the Interlochen Adult Chamber Music Camp, SoCal Chamber Music Workshop, and Crowden Music Center Chamber Music Workshop. In November 2020, the Telegraph Quartet launched ChamberFEAST!, a chamber music workshop in Taiwan and in fall 2020, Telegraph launched an online video project called TeleLab, in which the ensemble collectively breaks down the components of a movement from various works for quartet.
For more information, visit www.telegraphquartet.com.
For Calendar Editors:
Description: The award-winning Telegraph Quartet, described by The New York Times as being “full of elegance and pinpoint control,” is presented in two performances on Monday, April 8 and Tuesday April 9, 2024 –– both at 7:30pm. Both concerts will feature the Bay Area ensemble performing a program featuring three works that are shaped by immensely personal experiences and relationships, written during the 19th and 20th centuries: Fanny Mendelssohn’s String Quartet in E-flat major (1834), George Walker’s String Quartet No. 1 Lyric (1946) and Dvořák’s String Quartet No. 14 in A-flat Major, Op. 105 B. 193 (1895).
Short description: The Telegraph Quartet, which is described as “full of elegance and pinpoint control” (The New York Times), is presented in concert by Lebanon Valley College on Friday, April 5, 2024 at 7:30pm. The ensemble will perform the music of Walker and Dvořák.
Concert details:
Who: Telegraph Quartet
Presented by Feldman Chamber Music Society
What: Music by Fanny Mendelssohn, George Walker, and Antonin Dvořák
When: Monday, April 8, 2024 at 7:30pm
Where: Kaufman Theater at Chrysler Museum of Art, 1 Memorial Place, Norfolk, VA 23510
Tickets and information: www.chambermusicwilliamsburg.org/telegraph-quartet-april-9-2024/
Who: Telegraph Quartet
Presented by Chamber Music Society of Williamsburg
What: Music by Fanny Mendelssohn, George Walker, and Antonin Dvořák
When: Tuesday, April 9, 2024 at 7:30pm
Where: Williamsburg Regional Library, 515 Scotland St., Williamsburg, VA 23185
Tickets and information: www.feldmanchambermusic.org/telegraph-quartet-april-8-2024/
Feb. 28: Telegraph Quartet Presented by the San Francisco Conservatory of Music
Telegraph Quartet, Presented by San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Performing the Music of Stephen Prutsman and Alban Berg.
Photo of the Telegraph Quartet by Lisa Marie Mazzucco available in high resolution at: www.jensenartists.com/artists-profiles/telegraph-quartet
Telegraph Quartet Presented by
the San Francisco Conservatory of Music
Performing the Music of Stephen Prutsman:
Film Score from The Cabinet of Caligari
Plus Alban Berg’s “Lyric Suite"
Wednesday, February 28, 2024 at 7:30pm
Sol Joseph Recital Hall | 50 Oak Street | San Francisco, CA
Tickets and Information: https://sfcm.edu/experience/performances/telegraph-quartet-recital-0
“tonal warmth and communicative urgency”
– San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco, CA – The Telegraph Quartet (Eric Chin and Joseph Maile, violins; Pei-Ling Lin, viola; Jeremiah Shaw, cello) –– described by The New York Times as being “full of elegance and pinpoint control” –– will be presented in concert by the San Francisco Conservatory of Music on Wednesday, February 28, 2024 at 7:30pm in a program featuring music by Stephen Prustman and Alban Berg.
Known for their technical prowess and appreciation for the history behind music, the Telegraph Quartet brings a concert program to the San Francisco Conservatory of Music that is both steeped in the history of the 1920s but also grounded in writing from the present day and reflective of two very different styles of music. Though Stephen Prutsman –– known for his film scoring –– is an active musician and composer of today, The Cabinet of Caligari is a silent horror film from the dawn of the 1920s that’s considered the quintessential work of German Expressionist cinema. Conversely, Alban Berg found inspiration for his Lyric Suite in Hanna Fuchs-Robettin, with whom Berg began a love affair in 1925. Despite the affair being clandestine, the Lyric Suite itself served as Berg’s manifestation of the excitement, trepidation, and suffering of the secret relationship, with Berg going so far as to include their initials in musical cryptograms throughout.
Violinist Joseph Maile says of the emotional contrast found in this program and performing Prutsman’s film score:
“We programmed both of these works for their use of the incredibly overwrought and distorted lens of expressionism that was such a hallmark of this era of the early 20th Century. The stark shadows and harsh lighting cast on the crooked scenery of Robert Wiene’s “Caligari” create one of the first psychological thrillers of film, and Stephen Prutsman’s outstanding score draws on the styles of Bartók and the Second Viennese School (of which Alban Berg was a seminal figure) to underscore the dark expressionism of the film.
Alban Berg’s seminal chamber work and ‘latent opera’ as he called it, was inextricably tied to and pulled out of his deeply personal, secret affair and spiritual relationship with Hanna Fuchs-Robettin, which, in his own words, caused his world to be turned upside down and continued via letter until his death 10 years later. It expresses through the newly created 12-tone language, that same degree of delirium, passion, and mysticism of the ‘Caligari’, but through a purely musical medium.”
The Telegraph Quartet’s new release, 20th Century Vantage Points: Divergent Paths was released on August 25 via Azica Records. The first album in a three record series focused on string quartets of the era, Divergent Paths offers a glimpse into the beginning of the 20th century. The Telegraph Quartet explores this time period of bewildering and unbridled creativity through the work of Arnold Schoenberg and Maurice Ravel, whose music on this album weaves threads of great contrast and surprising similarity.
As a recorded display of the Telegraph Quartet’s long standing appreciation for the unique musical work of this era, Divergent Paths has been highly praised by both for its adventurous pairing and for the ensemble’s impressive performance thereof. Arts Fuse writes, “[The Telegraph Quartet] demonstrate[s] an attractive comfortability with Schoenberg’s larger style. The New York Times says: “[I]n the Schoenberg, they achieve something truly special, meticulously guiding its often wayward progress. At times Schoenberg makes the four strings sound almost orchestral, but the Telegraph players can also make his contrapuntal tangles radiantly clear. Every minute of their account sounds gripping and purposeful, which is one of the highest compliments you can pay the piece.” The Strad writes of Telegraph’s performance of the Ravel, “The textures are delicate and subtle, the Telegraph’s interpretation equally nuanced. Virtuosity is consummate: expressively full one second, lean the next, with the players bending in the wind of Ravel’s quixotically shifting sonorities.
About Telegraph Quartet: The Telegraph Quartet (Eric Chin and Joseph Maile, violins; Pei-Ling Lin, viola; Jeremiah Shaw, cello) formed in 2013 with an equal passion for standard and contemporary chamber music repertoire. Described by the San Francisco Chronicle as “…an incredibly valuable addition to the cultural landscape” and “powerfully adept… with a combination of brilliance and subtlety,” the Telegraph Quartet was awarded the prestigious 2016 Walter W. Naumburg Chamber Music Award and the Grand Prize at the 2014 Fischoff Chamber Music Competition.
The Quartet has performed in New York City’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, San Francisco’s Herbst Theatre, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music’s Chamber Masters Series, and at festivals including the Chautauqua Institute, Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival, and the Emilia Romagna Festival. They have collaborated with pianists Leon Fleisher and Simone Dinnerstein; cellists Norman Fischer and Bonnie Hampton; violinist Ian Swensen; composer-vocalist Theo Bleckmann; St. Lawrence Quartet, and the Henschel Quartett. A fervent champion of 20th- and 21st-century repertoire, the Telegraph Quartet has premiered works by John Harbison, Osvaldo Golijov, Robert Sirota, and Richard Festinger. In 2018 the Quartet released its debut album, Into the Light, featuring works by Anton Webern, Benjamin Britten, and Leon Kirchner on the Centaur label. The Telegraph Quartet released its new album, 20th Century Vantage Points: Divergent Paths –– which features Ravel’s renowned quartet and Schoenberg’s first quartet –– on August 25 via Azica Records.
Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, the Quartet is currently on the chamber music faculty at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music as the Quartet-in-Residence and has given master classes at the SFCM Collegiate and Pre-College Divisions, through the Morrison Artist Series at San Francisco State University, and abroad at the Taipei National University of the Arts, National Taiwan Normal University, and in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Telegraph has also served as artists-in-residence at the Interlochen Adult Chamber Music Camp, SoCal Chamber Music Workshop, and Crowden Music Center Chamber Music Workshop. In November 2020, the Telegraph Quartet launched ChamberFEAST!, a chamber music workshop in Taiwan and in fall 2020, Telegraph launched an online video project called TeleLab, in which the ensemble collectively breaks down the components of a movement from various works for quartet.
For more information, visit www.telegraphquartet.com.
For Calendar Editors:
Description: The award-winning Telegraph Quartet, described by the San Francisco Chronicle as having "tonal warmth and communicative urgency,” is presented in concert by the San Francisco Conservatory of Music on Wednesday, February 28, 2024 at 7:30pm. The Bay Area ensemble will perform a program highlighting history of the 1920s through two very contrasting works, including Stephen Prutsman’s film score for German-expressionist horror film The Cabinet of Caligari (1920) and Alban Berg’s love-affair inspired “Lyric Suite" (1925).
Short description: The Telegraph Quartet, described as having "tonal warmth and communicative urgency” (San Francisco Chronicle), is presented by the San Francisco Conservatory of Music on February 28, 2024 for a performance featuring the music of Stephen Prutsman and Alban Berg.
Concert details:
Who: Telegraph Quartet
Presented by the San Francisco Conservatory of Music
What: Music by Stephen Prutsman and Alban Berg
When: Wednesday, February 28, 2024 at 7:30pm
Where: Sol Joseph Recital Hall, 50 Oak Street, San Francisco, CA 94102
Tickets and information: www.sfcm.edu/experience/performances/telegraph-quartet-recital-0
Feb. 24: Telegraph Quartet Presented by Stanford Live
Telegraph Quartet, Presented by Stanford Live, Perform Music of Grażyna Bacewicz, Alban Berg, and Benjamin Britten
Photo of the Telegraph Quartet by Lisa Marie Mazzucco available in high resolution at: www.jensenartists.com/artists-profiles/telegraph-quartet
Telegraph Quartet Presented by Stanford Live
Performing Music by Grażyna Bacewicz, Alban Berg, Mieczysław Weinberg
Saturday, February 24, 2024 at 7pm
The Studio | 327 Lasuen St. | Stanford, CA
Tickets and more information: https://live.stanford.edu/calendar/february-2023/telegraph-quartet
“precise tuning, textural variety and impassioned communication”
– The Strad
Stanford, CA – On Sunday, February 24, 2024 at 7pm, the Telegraph Quartet (Eric Chin and Joseph Maile, violins; Pei-Ling Lin, viola; Jeremiah Shaw, cello) will be presented in concert by Stanford Live at The Studio (327 Lasuen Street). Telegraph Quartet will perform a program that highlights music from the first half of the 20th century, including String Quartet No. 4 (1951) by Grażyna Bacewicz, Alban Berg’s Lyric Suite (1925-26), and String Quartet No. 1 (1941) by Benjamin Britten.
Known for their technical prowess and appreciation for the history behind music and the experiences of composers, the program Telegraph Quartet will perform features music that juggles the flagrant turmoils of World War II with the subtlety of deep passion when intertwined with a covert affair. Together, these works give Telegraph Quartet the opportunity to display their emotionally nuanced and seamlessly unified musical expression from vastly different emotional vantage points.
The Telegraph Quartet’s new release, 20th Century Vantage Points: Divergent Paths was released on August 25 via Azica Records. The first album in a three record series focused on string quartets of the era, Divergent Paths offers a glimpse into the beginning of the 20th century. The Telegraph Quartet explores this time period of bewildering and unbridled creativity through the work of Arnold Schoenberg and Maurice Ravel, whose music on this album weaves threads of great contrast and surprising similarity. Part of the program the Telegraph Quartet is performing for Stanford Live –– Grażyna Bacewicz’s String Quartet No. 4 (1951), and Benjamin Britten’s String Quartet No. 1 (1941) –– make up the selections that will be recorded on the second volume in the series.
Violinist Joseph Maile says of the historical context built into this program:
“All three of these works represent milestones in the musical development of each composer and the emergence of a mature style for each. It may be no coincidence that each was also written during or after troubling or downright traumatic points in their lives, whether deeply personal, in the case of Alban Berg and his doomed love affair, or in the face of the vast societal upheaval and displacement, in the case of Britten and Bacewicz’s personal experiences of World War II.”
Grażyna Bacewicz’s String Quartet No. 4 was composed in 1951, several years after the end of World War II. During this time, Bacewicz lived through the Nazi occupation of Warsaw. The work opens with a kind of sorrow-tinged hope that builds to a joyous third movement.
Alban Berg’s unlikely muse and the inspiration of his Lyric Suite, Hanna Fuchs-Robettin, was discovered much later through a miniature score of the composer outlining a secret love narrative. In 1925 an affair began between them––both were married––and Berg composed the work over the next year as a musical manifestation of the excitement, trepidation, and suffering of their secret relationship, going so far as to include their initials in musical cryptograms throughout.
Benjamin Britten and his future partner Peter Pears fled England in 1939 with the rumblings of war with Germany on their heels, in part to avoid their inevitable jailing if war broke out due to their pacifist beliefs. War did break out shortly and by 1941, the homesick Britten was writing his first quartet, with a nostalgia for his island home that is reflected in the wave-like motions of the work’s third movement.
More about the Telegraph Quartet: Described by the San Francisco Chronicle as “…an incredibly valuable addition to the cultural landscape” and “powerfully adept… with a combination of brilliance and subtlety,” the Telegraph Quartet was awarded the prestigious 2016 Walter W. Naumburg Chamber Music Award and the Grand Prize at the 2014 Fischoff Chamber Music Competition.
The Quartet has performed in New York City’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, San Francisco’s Herbst Theatre, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music’s Chamber Masters Series, and at festivals including the Chautauqua Institute, Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival, and the Emilia Romagna Festival. They have collaborated with pianists Leon Fleisher and Simone Dinnerstein; cellists Norman Fischer and Bonnie Hampton; violinist Ian Swensen; composer-vocalist Theo Bleckmann; St. Lawrence Quartet, and the Henschel Quartett. A fervent champion of 20th- and 21st-century repertoire, the Telegraph Quartet has premiered works by John Harbison, Osvaldo Golijov, Robert Sirota, and Richard Festinger. In 2018 the Quartet released its debut album, Into the Light, featuring works by Anton Webern, Benjamin Britten, and Leon Kirchner on the Centaur label. The Telegraph Quartet released its new album, 20th Century Vantage Points: Divergent Paths –– which features Ravel’s renowned quartet and Schoenberg’s first quartet –– on August 25 via Azica Records.
Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, the Quartet is currently on the chamber music faculty at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music as the Quartet-in-Residence and has given master classes at the SFCM Collegiate and Pre-College Divisions, through the Morrison Artist Series at San Francisco State University, and abroad at the Taipei National University of the Arts, National Taiwan Normal University, and in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Telegraph has also served as artists-in-residence at the Interlochen Adult Chamber Music Camp, SoCal Chamber Music Workshop, and Crowden Music Center Chamber Music Workshop. In November 2020, the Telegraph Quartet launched ChamberFEAST!, a chamber music workshop in Taiwan and in fall 2020, Telegraph launched an online video project called TeleLab, in which the ensemble collectively breaks down the components of a movement from various works for quartet.
For more information, visit www.telegraphquartet.com.
About Stanford Live: Stanford Live presents a wide range of the finest performances from around the world fostering a vibrant learning community and providing distinctive experiences through the performing arts. With its home at Bing Concert Hall and Frost Amphitheater, Stanford Live is simultaneously a public square, a sanctuary, and a lab, drawing on the breadth and depth of Stanford University to connect performance to the significant issues, ideas, and discoveries of our time. Stanford Live includes a wealth of collaborators and partners, including Stanford academic departments and individual faculty members, Stanford students, off-campus arts institutions, and community organizations. Crucially, Stanford Live supports the university’s focus on placing the arts at the heart of a Stanford education.
For Calendar Editors:
Description: The award-winning Telegraph Quartet, described by The Strad as having "precise tuning, textural variety and impassioned communication,” is presented in concert by Stanford Live on Saturday, February 24, 2024 at 7:00pm. The Bay Area ensemble will perform a program highlighting music from the first half of the 20th century, including String Quartet No. 4 by Grażyna Bacewicz, Lyric Suite by Alban Berg, and String Quartet No. 1 in D Major, Op. 25 by Benjamin Britten.
Short description: The Telegraph Quartet, described as having "precise tuning, textural variety and impassioned communication,” (The Strad), is presented by Stanford Live on February 24, 2024 for a performance featuring the music of Grażyna Bacewicz, Alban Berg, and Benjamin Britten.
Concert details:
Who: Telegraph Quartet
Presented by Stanford Live
What: Music by Grażyna Bacewicz, Alban Berg, and Benjamin Britten
When: Saturday, February 24, 2024 at 7pm
Where: The Studio, 327 Lasuen St., Stanford, CA, 94305
Tickets and information: www.live.stanford.edu/calendar/february-2024/telegraph-quartet
Telegraph Quartet Presented by Friends of Chamber Music Portland in Two Performances
Telegraph Quartet Presented by Friends of Chamber Music Portland in Two Performances
January 22 & 23, 2024 at 7:30pm
Lincoln Performance Hall at Portland State University
Photo of the Telegraph Quartet by Lisa Marie Mazzucco available in high resolution at: www.jensenartists.com/artists-profiles/telegraph-quartet
Telegraph Quartet Presented by Friends of Chamber Music Portland in Two Performances
January 22 & 23, 2024 at 7:30pm
Lincoln Performance Hall at Portland State University
1620 SW Park Ave. | Portland, OR
Tickets & Information
Latest Album: Divergent Paths (Azica Records)
Available Now
Portland, OR – The San Francisco-based b (Eric Chin and Joseph Maile, violins; Pei-Ling Lin, viola; Jeremiah Shaw, cello), a group described by The Strad as having "precise tuning, textural variety and impassioned communication,” will be presented by Friends of Chamber Music Portland in two concerts – First Time’s a Charm featuring music by Walker, Britten, Vivian Fung, and Dvořák on Monday, January 22 and Unlikely Muses featuring music by Beethoven, Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, and Berg on Tuesday, January 23, both at 7:30pm.
First Time’s a Charm explores examples of composers’ first attempts at the string quartet form, which they approached with great respect and individual exploration, and includes George Walker’s String Quartet No. 1 “Lyric;” Britten’s String Quartet No. 1 in D Major, Op. 25; Vivian Fung’s “Pizzicato” from String Quartet No. 1; and Dvořák’s String Quartet No. 14 in A-flat Major, Op. 105. George Walker composed his first quartet in a neo-romantic style when he was 23 years old, at a time when classical music in America was turning toward a more severe, mathematical approach. Britten completed his first string quartet within three months after he accepted a commission from the great devotee and supporter of chamber music Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge. Composing a work at her invitation earned him a $400 fee, and also added his name to an elite roster of composers (Bartók, Schoenberg, Copland, et al.) who had benefited from her commissions. Canadian composer Vivian Fung wrote her first string quartet using one of the most iconic tools of the medium, the pizzicato. Fung says, “Inspired by listening to Asian folk music, the piece is influenced partly by the music of the Chinese plucked instruments pipa and qin as well as by the energetic rhythms of Indonesian gamelan.” In contrast to the theme, the program closes with Dvořák’s last string quartet. For nearly three years, beginning in 1892, Antonin Dvořák lived with his family in New York City, where he was engaged as the director of the American Conservatory of Music. Dvořák became well acquainted with the musical cultures of this country. Upon returning to his homeland, Dvořák continued to work on the composition he started before leaving the United States. However, Dvořák had come home, and his new quartet spoke his language, the language of the Bohemian culture.
Unlikely Muses reflects deep relationships each composer had with another during their life that affected the course of their work and includes Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 6 in B-flat Major, Op. 18 No. 6; Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel’s String Quartet; and Berg’s Lyric Suite. The last of Beethoven’s first six string quartets owes its wit, levity, and exploratory nature to Beethoven’s teacher Josef Haydn, the grandfather of the quartet. Though Beethoven and Haydn often clashed over their styles, later in life, Beethoven would acknowledge his musical debt to Haydn and the evolution of his quartets from their Haydn-esque beginnings. Although Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel did not have a public career as a composer like her brother Felix, the two were close musical confidants throughout their lives and influenced each other’s work deeply, as can be heard in her string quartet. Lastly, Alban Berg’s unlikely muse is Hanna Fuchs-Robettin, the inspiration of his Lyric Suite, discovered much later through a miniature score of the composer outlining a secret love narrative. In 1925 an affair began between them––both were married––and Berg composed the work over the next year as a musical manifestation of the excitement, trepidation, and suffering of their secret relationship, going so far as to include their initials in musical cryptograms throughout.
The Telegraph Quartet’s latest album, 20th Century Vantage Points: Divergent Paths, was released on August 25 via Azica Records. The first in the Telegraph’s three-album series focused on string quartets of the first half of the 20th century, Divergent Paths explores the bewildering and unbridled creativity of the period through the music of Arnold Schoenberg and Maurice Ravel, whose music on this album weaves threads of great contrast and surprising similarity. The album has been met with critical acclaim, with The New York Times reporting, “[I]n the Schoenberg, they achieve something truly special, meticulously guiding its often wayward progress. At times Schoenberg makes the four strings sound almost orchestral, but the Telegraph players can also make his contrapuntal tangles radiantly clear. Every minute of their account sounds gripping and purposeful, which is one of the highest compliments you can pay the piece.”
About Telegraph Quartet: The Telegraph Quartet (Eric Chin and Joseph Maile, violins; Pei-Ling Lin, viola; Jeremiah Shaw, cello) formed in 2013 with an equal passion for standard and contemporary chamber music repertoire. Described by the San Francisco Chronicle as “…an incredibly valuable addition to the cultural landscape” and “powerfully adept… with a combination of brilliance and subtlety,” the Telegraph Quartet was awarded the prestigious 2016 Walter W. Naumburg Chamber Music Award and the Grand Prize at the 2014 Fischoff Chamber Music Competition.
The Quartet has performed in New York City’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, San Francisco’s Herbst Theatre, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music’s Chamber Masters Series, and at festivals including the Chautauqua Institute, Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival, and the Emilia Romagna Festival. They have collaborated with pianists Leon Fleisher and Simone Dinnerstein; cellists Norman Fischer and Bonnie Hampton; violinist Ian Swensen; composer-vocalist Theo Bleckmann; St. Lawrence Quartet, and the Henschel Quartett. A fervent champion of 20th- and 21st-century repertoire, the Telegraph Quartet has premiered works by John Harbison, Osvaldo Golijov, Robert Sirota, and Richard Festinger. In 2018 the Quartet released its debut album, Into the Light, featuring works by Anton Webern, Benjamin Britten, and Leon Kirchner on the Centaur label. The Telegraph Quartet released its new album, 20th Century Vantage Points: Divergent Paths – which features Ravel’s renowned quartet and Schoenberg’s first quartet – on August 25 via Azica Records.
Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, the Quartet is currently on the chamber music faculty at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music as the Quartet-in-Residence and has given master classes at the SFCM Collegiate and Pre-College Divisions, through the Morrison Artist Series at San Francisco State University, and abroad at the Taipei National University of the Arts, National Taiwan Normal University, and in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Telegraph has also served as artists-in-residence at the Interlochen Adult Chamber Music Camp, SoCal Chamber Music Workshop, and Crowden Music Center Chamber Music Workshop. In November 2020, the Telegraph Quartet launched ChamberFEAST!, a chamber music workshop in Taiwan and in fall 2020, Telegraph launched an online video project called TeleLab, in which the ensemble collectively breaks down the components of a movement from various works for quartet.
For more information, visit www.telegraphquartet.com.
For Calendar Editors:
Description: The award-winning Telegraph Quartet, described by The New York Times as being “full of elegance and pinpoint control,” is presented in concert by Friends of Chamber Music Portland on Monday, January 22 and Tuesday January 23, 2024 at 7:30pm. The Bay Area ensemble will perform a different program each evening–First Time’s a Charm and Unlikely Muses. The first concert will feature music by Walker, Britten, Vivian Fung, and Dvořák, while the second performance will feature the work of Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, Beethoven, and Berg.
Short description: The Telegraph Quartet, which is described as “full of elegance and pinpoint control” (The New York Times), is presented by Friends of Chamber Music Portland in two unique performances on January 22 and 23, 2024. The first concert will include works by Walker, Britten, Vivian Fung, and Dvořák. The second performance will feature music by Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, Beethoven, and Berg.
Concert details:
Who: Telegraph Quartet
Presented by Friends of Chamber Music Portland
What: Music by Walker, Britten, Vivian Fung, and Dvořák; Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, Beethoven, and Berg
When: Monday January 22 and Tuesday January 23, 2024 at 7:30pm
Where: Lincoln Performance Hall at Portland State University, 1620 SW Park Ave., Portland, OR 97214
Tickets and information: www.focm.org/concerts/2023-24-season/telegraph-quartet-2023-24/6263/
Award-Winning Telegraph Quartet Presented by the University of Michigan Performing Music by Bacewicz, Britten, and Weinberg
Telegraph Quartet Presented by the University of Michigan
Performing Music by Grażyna Bacewicz, Benjamin Britten, Mieczysław Weinberg
Monday, November 13, 2023 at 8pm
Britton Recital Hall at University of Michigan
Photo of the Telegraph Quartet by Lisa Marie Mazzucco available in high resolution at: www.jensenartists.com/artists-profiles/telegraph-quartet
Telegraph Quartet Presented by the University of Michigan
Performing Music by Grażyna Bacewicz, Benjamin Britten, Mieczysław Weinberg
Monday, November 13, 2023 at 8pm
Britton Recital Hall at University of Michigan
1100 Baits Dr. | Ann Arbor, MI
Free and Open-to-the-Public
Information at: www.smtd.umich.edu/event/13-november-2023-3/
“full of elegance and pinpoint control...”
– The New Yorker
Ann Arbor, MI – The Telegraph Quartet (Eric Chin and Joseph Maile, violins; Pei-Ling Lin, viola; Jeremiah Shaw, cello), a group described by The Strad as having "precise tuning, textural variety and impassioned communication,” will be presented in concert by The University of Michigan on Monday, November 13, 2023 at 8pm, as part of a residency with the University from November 12-14, 2023, which includes a Masterclass on Sunday, November 12 at 7pm. The concert and masterclass are both free and open to the public. For their performance, Telegraph Quartet will perform a program featuring String Quartet No. 4 (1951) by Grażyna Bacewicz, String Quartet No. 1 (1941) by Benjamin Britten, and String Quartet No. 6 in E minor Op. 35 (1946) by Mieczysław Weinberg.
Known for their technical prowess and appreciation for the history behind music, the Telegraph Quartet brings a concert program to the University of Michigan that’s steeped in the mystery, tension, and global turmoil of World War II. Intricate and stylistically intense compositions intertwine with the feelings and perceptions imparted into each work by their respective composers, as a result of the unique but highly charged circumstances all three faced during the war. These works channel a dark era in human history but give Telegraph Quartet an exciting opportunity to display their performative precision and unified musical expression through works that beautifully blend compositional complexity with many strong emotions..
The Telegraph Quartet’s new release, 20th Century Vantage Points: Divergent Paths was released on August 25 via Azica Records. The first album in a three record series focused on string quartets of the era, Divergent Paths offers a glimpse into the beginning of the 20th century. The Telegraph Quartet explores this time bewildering and unbridled creativity through the work of Arnold Schoenberg and Maurice Ravel, whose music on this album weaves threads of great contrast and surprising similarity. The works the Telegraph Quartet is performing for the University of Michigan make up the program that will be recorded on the second volume in the series.
The New York Times says of the first installment in the trilogy:
“[I]n the Schoenberg, they achieve something truly special, meticulously guiding its often wayward progress. At times Schoenberg makes the four strings sound almost orchestral, but the Telegraph players can also make his contrapuntal tangles radiantly clear. Every minute of their account sounds gripping and purposeful, which is one of the highest compliments you can pay the piece.”
Joseph Maile of the Telegraph Quartet says:
“All of the works on this program and future album reflect each composers’ emotional state as they wrestled with the consequences of these traumatic times. While foreboding, anger, uncertainty and longing pervade the works, each one finds its own way to a life-affirming optimism, whether defiant or joyous. We are very excited to be coming to the University of Michigan and working with all of the talented and dedicated students there! Along with our Masterclass, we look forward to also working one-on-one with the students and sharing these intense and profound works with them and the overall community.”
Grażyna Bacewicz’s String Quartet No. 4 was composed in 1951, several years after the end of World War II. During this time, Bacewicz lived through the Nazi occupation of Warsaw. The work opens with a kind of sorrow-tinged hope that builds to a joyous third movement.
Benjamin Britten and his future partner Peter Pears fled England in 1939 with the rumblings of war with Germany on their heels, in part to avoid their inevitable jailing if war broke out due to their pacifist beliefs. War did break out shortly and by 1941, the homesick Britten was writing his first quartet, with a nostalgia for his island home that is reflected in the wave-like motions of the work’s third movement.
During World War II Weinberg fled his homeland of Poland and having failed to convince his family to come with him, almost all of them would be murdered in the concentration camps. His String Quartet No. 6 (1946) contains an innocent mundanity that erupts throughout the work into desperation, sorrow, and tragic indignation as he dealt with the ramifications of his exile and learned to live warily in his newfound home of the Soviet Union.
About Telegraph Quartet: The Telegraph Quartet (Eric Chin and Joseph Maile, violins; Pei-Ling Lin, viola; Jeremiah Shaw, cello) formed in 2013 with an equal passion for standard and contemporary chamber music repertoire. Described by the San Francisco Chronicle as “…an incredibly valuable addition to the cultural landscape” and “powerfully adept… with a combination of brilliance and subtlety,” the Telegraph Quartet was awarded the prestigious 2016 Walter W. Naumburg Chamber Music Award and the Grand Prize at the 2014 Fischoff Chamber Music Competition.
The Quartet has performed in New York City’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, San Francisco’s Herbst Theatre, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music’s Chamber Masters Series, and at festivals including the Chautauqua Institute, Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival, and the Emilia Romagna Festival. They have collaborated with pianists Leon Fleisher and Simone Dinnerstein; cellists Norman Fischer and Bonnie Hampton; violinist Ian Swensen; composer-vocalist Theo Bleckmann; St. Lawrence Quartet, and the Henschel Quartett. A fervent champion of 20th- and 21st-century repertoire, the Telegraph Quartet has premiered works by John Harbison, Osvaldo Golijov, Robert Sirota, and Richard Festinger. In 2018 the Quartet released its debut album, Into the Light, featuring works by Anton Webern, Benjamin Britten, and Leon Kirchner on the Centaur label. The Telegraph Quartet released its new album, 20th Century Vantage Points: Divergent Paths – which features Ravel’s renowned quartet and Schoenberg’s first quartet – on August 25 via Azica Records.
Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, the Quartet is currently on the chamber music faculty at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music as the Quartet-in-Residence and has given master classes at the SFCM Collegiate and Pre-College Divisions, through the Morrison Artist Series at San Francisco State University, and abroad at the Taipei National University of the Arts, National Taiwan Normal University, and in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Telegraph has also served as artists-in-residence at the Interlochen Adult Chamber Music Camp, SoCal Chamber Music Workshop, and Crowden Music Center Chamber Music Workshop. In November 2020, the Telegraph Quartet launched ChamberFEAST!, a chamber music workshop in Taiwan and in fall 2020, Telegraph launched an online video project called TeleLab, in which the ensemble collectively breaks down the components of a movement from various works for quartet.
For more information, visit www.telegraphquartet.com.
For Calendar Editors:
Description: The award-winning Telegraph Quartet, described by The New York Times as being “full of elegance and pinpoint control,” is presented in concert by the University of Michigan on Monday, November 13, 2023 at 8pm. On Sunday November 12, 2023 at 7pm, the Quartet will give a masterclass. Both events are free and open to the public. For the performance, the Bay Area ensemble will perform a program highlighting works of the mid 20th century, including Grażyna Bacewicz’s String Quartet No. 4, Benjamin Britten’s String Quartet No. 1, and Mieczysław Weinberg’s String Quartet No. 6 in E minor Op. 35 (1946).
Short description: The Telegraph Quartet, which is described as being “full of elegance and pinpoint control” (The New York Times), is presented by the University of Michigan for a masterclass on November 12 and performance on November 13, featuring the music of Grażyna Bacewicz, Benjamin Britten, and Mieczysław Weinberg. Both events are free and open to the public.
Concert details:
Who: Telegraph Quartet
Presented by the University of Michigan
What: Music by Grażyna Bacewicz, Benjamin Britten, and Mieczysław Weinberg
When: Monday November 13, 2023 at 8pm; Masterclass on Sunday, November 12 at 7pm
Where: Britton Recital Hall at University of Michigan, 1100 Baits Dr., Ann Arbor, MI 48109
Tickets and information (Free and Open to the Public): www.smtd.umich.edu/event/13-november-2023-3/
Telegraph Quartet Announces New Album, Divergent Paths, on Azica Records out August 25
Telegraph Quartet Announces New Album on Azica Records: Divergent Paths
Worldwide Release: August 25, 2023
Telegraph Quartet Announces New Album on
Azica Records: Divergent Paths
Worldwide Release: August 25, 2023
Downloads and CDs available to press on request
“precise tuning, textural variety and impassioned communication”
– The Strad on Telegraph Quartet’s musicianship
San Francisco, CA – The Telegraph Quartet (Eric Chin and Joseph Maile, violins; Pei-Ling Lin, viola; Jeremiah Shaw, cello) announce Divergent Paths. The Quartet’s newest album –– the first in a series of recordings titled 20th Century Vantage Points –– is set for worldwide release, digital and CD, on August 25, 2023 via Azica Records. This first volume features two works that (to the best of the quartet’s knowledge) have never been recorded on the same album before: Maurice Ravel’s String Quartet in F Major and Arnold Schoenberg’s String Quartet No. 1 in D minor, Op. 7. Through this series, the Telegraph Quartet intends to explore string quartets of the 20th century –– an era of music that the group has felt especially called to perform since forming in 2013. The new album's release will also mark the ensemble’s tenth anniversary together.
The Telegraph Quartet’s new release offers a glimpse into the beginning of the 20th century –– a time of bewildering and unbridled creativity –– through the work of Arnold Schoenberg and Maurice Ravel, whose music on this album weaves threads of great contrast and surprising similarity. For what would be Ravel’s first and sole string quartet, the piece offers a fascinating dimension of duality within itself. Conventionally Classical writing with four movements of traditional form and temperament, which simultaneously presents modal scales, complex melodies over extended harmonies, novel time signatures, and vibrant character reminiscent of Spanish or Basque dances, as well as Russian and Asian music. Like Ravel’s Quartet, Schoenberg’s String Quartet No. 1 is a work of similarly early status against his whole body of work. A staggering 46 minutes in length, Schoenberg’s piece also embraces the traditional classical structure in four movements. However, unlike Ravel, Schoenberg unites the elements in a continuous fashion, revealing a refined way to connect the Brahms’ approach to Classical writing and the Romantic New German School of Liszt, Wagner and Strauss. For the modern day listener, the Telegraph Quartet offers an analogy of musical form: “Schoenberg’s Op. 7 is like a Wagner opera for string quartet”. It is a chamber music tone poem.
The Telegraph Quartet found these two works by Ravel and Schoenberg, despite their contrasting qualities, make an appealing and intriguing pair. They say:
"As an ensemble, we've always been attracted to these two quartets by Ravel and Schoenberg –– at first for almost opposite reasons: the Ravel Quartet has a vibrant purity, while Schoenberg's epic Quartet No. 1 is thoroughly tumultuous and bewildering. Yet we found that both works, written within two years of one another and by composers of the same age, truly do reflect the sensuality and exploration of the human psyche that was such an important part of the dawn of the 20th century."
Celebrated by the San Francisco Chronicle as having “soulfulness, tonal beauty and intelligent attention to detail,” and seen as “an incredibly valuable addition to the cultural landscape," the Telegraph Quartet’s sophisticated blend of meticulous technicality and emotive chemistry has led the group to connect with audiences from all walks of life, bringing their memorable musicality to concert halls, classrooms, and vineyards alike.
Divergent Paths is the Telegraph Quartet’s second full length release and the group’s debut album with Azica Records. This record follows Into The Light (2018), an album highlighting a gripping set of works by Leon Kirchner, Anton Webern, and Benjamin Britten. Strings Magazine described the Telegraph Quartet’s performance of Britten's Three Divertimenti as “sparkl[ing] with brilliant humor,” calling the full recording an “exciting new disc.” AllMusic describes the ensemble as an “adventurous group,” stating that Into the Light “[put] the Telegraph Quartet on the map.”
Divergent Paths | Telegraph Quartet | Azica Records | Release Date: August 25, 2023 (Digital, CDs, Worldwide)
[1-4] Maurice Ravel (1875 - 1937): String Quartet in F Major (1902-1903)
[5-8] Arnold Schoenberg (1874 - 1951): String Quartet No. 1 in D minor, Op. 7 (1904-1905)
[Total Time: 71:57]
Recorded July 14-16, 2022 at St. Stephens Episcopal Church, Belvedere, CA.
Recorded and Produced by Alan Bise
Cover image: “Gaze” ca. 1910 Catalogue raisonné 62
Used by permission of Belmont Music Publishers, Los Angeles
Graphic Design: Monica Mussulin
About the Telegraph Quartet: The Telegraph Quartet (Eric Chin and Joseph Maile, violins; Pei-Ling Lin, viola; Jeremiah Shaw, cello) formed in 2013 with an equal passion for the standard chamber music repertoire and contemporary, non-standard works alike. Described by the San Francisco Chronicle as “…an incredibly valuable addition to the cultural landscape” and “powerfully adept… with a combination of brilliance and subtlety,” the Telegraph Quartet was awarded the prestigious 2016 Walter W. Naumburg Chamber Music Award and the Grand Prize at the 2014 Fischoff Chamber Music Competition. The Quartet has performed in concert halls, music festivals, and academic institutions across the United States and abroad, including New York City’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, San Francisco’s Herbst Theatre, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music’s Chamber Masters Series, and at festivals including the Chautauqua Institute, Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival, and the Emilia Romagna Festival. The Quartet is currently on the chamber music faculty at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music as the Quartet-in-Residence.
Notable collaborations include projects with pianists Leon Fleisher and Simone Dinnerstein; cellists Norman Fischer and Bonnie Hampton; violinist Ian Swensen; composer-vocalist Theo Bleckmann; the Henschel Quartett, and the St. Lawrence String Quartet.. A fervent champion of 20th- and 21st-century repertoire, the Telegraph Quartet has premiered works by John Harbison, Robert Sirota, and Richard Festinger, and Osvaldo Golijov.
In 2018 the Quartet released its debut album, Into the Light, featuring works by Anton Webern, Benjamin Britten, and Leon Kirchner on the Centaur label. The San Francisco Chronicle praised the album, saying, "Just five years after forming, the Bay Area’s Telegraph Quartet has established itself as an ensemble of serious depth and versatility, and the group’s terrific debut recording only serves to reinforce that judgment." AllMusic acclaimed, “An impressive beginning for an adventurous group, this 2018 release puts the Telegraph Quartet on the map.
Beyond the concert stage, the Telegraph Quartet seeks to spread its music through education and audience engagement. The Quartet has given master classes at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music Collegiate and Pre-College Divisions, through the Morrison Artist Series at San Francisco State University, and abroad at the Taipei National University of the Arts, National Taiwan Normal University, and in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Telegraph has also served as artists-in-residence at the Interlochen Adult Chamber Music Camp, SoCal Chamber Music Workshop, and Crowden Music Center Chamber Music Workshop. In November 2020, the Telegraph Quartet launched ChamberFEAST!, a chamber music workshop in Taiwan.
The Telegraph Quartet adapted to the challenging times presented by the COVID-19 pandemic and performed virtual concerts presented by the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Crowden Chamber Music Workshop, Noe Music, Noontime Concerts, Music in Corrales, and Intermusic SF. For Earth Day 2020 (the 50th anniversary of Earth Day), the National Academy of Science in collaboration with the ClimateMusic Project hosted a virtual performance by the Telegraph Quartet of Richard Festinger’s Icarus in Flight. In 2020, Telegraph launched an ongoing online video project called TeleLab, in which the ensemble collectively breaks down the components of a movement from various works for quartet. For more information, visit www.telegraphquartet.com.