Award-Winning Telegraph Quartet Presented by the University of Michigan Performing Music by Bacewicz, Britten, and Weinberg
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/