Feb. 8: Telegraph Quartet in Sound Imagined – Performing in Madison
Photo of the Telegraph Quartet by Lisa Marie Mazzucco available in high resolution here.
Telegraph Quartet in Sound Imagined
Presented by Madison Performing Arts Foundation
Performing the Music of Rebecca Clarke,
Ludwig van Beethoven, and Bedřich Smetana
Saturday, February 8, 2025 at 7:00pm
The Picker House | 110 St. Michaels Ave. | Madison, IN
More information
“soulfulness, tonal beauty and intelligent attention to detail ... an incredibly valuable addition to the cultural landscape.”
– San Francisco Chronicle
Madison, IN – On Saturday, February 8, 2025 at 7:00pm, 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 Madison Performing Arts Foundation at The Picker House (110 St. Michaels Ave). The award-winning ensemble will perform a program titled Sound Imagined, which features the music of Rebecca Clarke, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Bedřich Smetana.
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.
Known for their technical prowess and appreciation for the history behind music, the Telegraph Quartet bring their well-honed musical chemistry and expressive performance to a program titled Sound Imagined. The idea that a composer might never actually hear their own creation might at first seem like an oxymoron: unheard music. The Telegraph Quartet explores just that - compositions that may never have been fully experienced by the creators themselves. Rebecca Clarke, a truly accomplished composer of the 20th century, composed her Poem for string quartet but would never see the work published and disseminated in her lifetime. Beethoven had begun losing his hearing by his late 20s and by the time the good-natured “Harp” Quartet was composed, its cheery quality belied the composer’s 11-year-long struggle with hearing loss that would have kept him from fully experiencing this work. Similarly, Smetana would not have been able to even hear his own first string quartet at all, as he fell victim to severe hearing loss in 1874. His own autobiographical string quartet, for all its joy and enthusiasm, ends with a piercing e-string note that denotes the onset of that hearing loss two years prior to the quartet’s creation.
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 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 the Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Michigan.
Notable collaborations include projects with pianists Leon Fleisher and Simone Dinnerstein; cellists Norman Fischer and Bonnie Hampton; violinist Ian Swensen; and the St. Lawrence Quartet and Henschel Quartett. A fervent champion of 20th- and 21st-century repertoire, the Telegraph Quartet has premiered works by Osvaldo Golijov, John Harbison, Robert Sirota, and Richard Festinger.
In August 2023, the Telegraph Quartet released its latest album Divergent Paths, the first in a series of recordings titled 20th Century Vantage Points, on 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 its formation. The New York Times praised the Telegraph’s performance as “…full of elegance and pinpoint control…” Divergent Paths follows Into The Light (Centaur, 2018), an album highlighting a gripping set of works by Leon Kirchner, Anton Webern, and Benjamin Britten.
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. 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. In the summers of 2022 and 2024, the Telegraph Quartet traveled to Vienna to work with Schoenberg expert Henk Guittart in conjunction with the Arnold Schoenberg Center, researching all of Schoenberg's string quartets.
For more information, visit www.telegraphquartet.com.
For Calendar Editors:
Concert details:
Who: Telegraph Quartet
Presented by Madison Performing Arts Foundation
What: Music by Rebecca Clarke, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Bedřich Smetana
When: Saturday, February 8, 2025 @ 7:00 PM
Where: The Picker House, 110 St. Michaels Ave., Madison, IN 47250
Tickets and information: www.madisonperformingartsfoundation.com
Description: The award-winning Telegraph Quartet, which the San Francisco Chronicle describes as having “soulfulness, tonal beauty and intelligent attention to detail” and being “an incredibly valuable addition to the cultural landscape,” is presented by the Madison Performing Arts Foundation on Saturday, February 8, 2025. The concert will feature Rebecca Clarke’s Poem for String Quartet Beethoven’s String Quartet Op. 74 “Harp” and Bedřich Smetana’s String Quartet No. 1 “From My Life,” in a program curated by the ensemble and titled Sound Imagined. Through this performance, the Telegraph Quartet explore the idea that a composer may never actually hear and experience their own creations.