July 6: 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.