April 2: Telegraph Quartet Presented by Lebanon Valley College Performing the Music of George Walker and Antonin Dvořák
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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/