CALIDORE STRING QUARTET
CHAMBER MUSIC
Jeffrey Myers, violin
Ryan Meehan, violin
Jeremy Berry, viola
Estelle Choi, cello
CALIDORE STRING QUARTET
CHAMBER MUSIC
Jeffrey Myers, violin; Ryan Meehan, violin
Jeremy Berry, viola; Estelle Choi, cello
ABOUT
The Calidore String Quartet is recognized as one of the world’s foremost interpreters of a vast chamber music repertory, from the cycles of quartets by Beethoven and Mendelssohn to works of celebrated contemporary voices like György Kurtág, Jörg Widmann, and Caroline Shaw. For more than a decade, the Calidore has enjoyed performances and residencies in the world’s major venues and festivals, released multiple critically acclaimed recordings, and won numerous awards. The Los Angeles Times described the musicians as “astonishing,” their playing “shockingly deep,” approaching “the kind of sublimity other quartets spend a lifetime searching.” The New York Times noted the Quartet’s “deep reserves of virtuosity and irrepressible dramatic instinct,” and the Washington Post wrote that “four more individual musicians are unimaginable, yet these speak, breathe, think and feel as one”.
The New York City based Calidore String Quartet has appeared in venues throughout North America, Europe, and Asia including Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, London’s Wigmore Hall, Berlin’s Konzerthaus, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, Brussels’ BOZAR, Cologne Philharmonie, Seoul’s Kumho Arts Hall, and at major festivals such as the BBC Proms, Verbier, Ravinia, Mostly Mozart, Music@Menlo, Rheingau, East Neuk, and Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. Always seeking new commissioning opportunities, the Quartet has given world premieres of works by Caroline Shaw, Anna Clyne, Han Lash, Huw Watkins and Mark-Anthony Turnage and collaborated with artists such as Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Marc-André Hamelin, Joshua Bell, Emerson String Quartet, Jeffrey Kahane, David Shifrin, Inon Barnatan, Lawrence Power, Sharon Isbin, David Finckel and Wu Han.
Highlights of the 23-24 season include return appearances at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and People’s Symphony in New York as well as concerts in Seattle, Palm Beach, Ottawa, Toronto, Kalamazoo and a European tour of the United Kingdom, Estonia and Germany. The Calidore team up with pianist and composer Gabriela Montero for a world premiere of her new piano quintet at the Gilmore Piano Festival (MI) and also enjoy collaborations with the violist Matthew Lipman and harpist Bridget Kibbey, with whom they will premiere a new work by Sebastian Currier. Last season, the Calidore joined the Emerson String Quartet on their farewell tour in the Mendelssohn Octet and collaborated with clarinetist Anthony McGill and bassist Xavier Foley. The Quartet members also performed at Carnegie Hall alongside Anne-Sophie Mutter in a memorial concert honoring André Previn, featuring his compositions.
In their most ambitious recording project to date, the Calidore is set to release the complete Beethoven’s String Quartets for Signum Records in the 24/25 season. Volume I, containing the late quartets, was released in 2023 to great critical acclaim. BBC Music Magazine said the Calidore’s performances “penetrate right to the heart of the music” and “can stand comparison with the best.” Their previous recordings on Signum include titles Babel with music by Schumann, Shaw and Shostakovich, and Resilience with works by Prokofiev, Janáček, Golijov and Mendelssohn.
The Calidore String Quartet was founded at the Colburn School in Los Angeles in 2010. Within two years, the quartet won grand prizes in virtually all the major US chamber music competitions, including the Fischoff, Coleman, Chesapeake, and Yellow Springs competitions, and it captured top prizes at the 2012 ARD International Music Competition in Munich and the International Chamber Music Competition Hamburg. The Quartet first made international headlines as the winner of the $100,000 Grand Prize of the 2016 M-Prize International Chamber Music Competition and it was the first and only North American ensemble to win the Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship. The Calidore was also named a BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist and in 2018, it was awarded the Avery Fisher Career Grant, having won the Lincoln Center Emerging Artist Award a year prior. The Calidore is currently in residence with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in New York.
In 2021 the Calidore members joined the faculty of the University of Delaware School of Music and serve as artistic directors of the newly established Graduate String Quartet Fellowship Residency and the University of Delaware Chamber Music Series. Prior to taking this position, they served as artist-in-residence at the University of Toronto, University of Michigan and Stony Brook University. Now dedicated teachers and passionate supporters of music education themselves, the Calidore is grateful to have been mentored by the Emerson Quartet, Quatuor Ébène, Andre Roy, Arnold Steinhardt, David Finckel, Günter Pichler, Guillaume Sutre, Paul Coletti, and Ronald Leonard.
The Calidore String Quartet plays the following instruments:
Jeffrey Myers plays a violin by Francesco Rugeri c.1680, owned by a private benefactor on loan through the Leonhard Fellowship and plays a bow by Francois Tourte.
Ryan Meehan plays a violin by Vincenzo Panormo c.1775 and a bow by Joseph Henry.
Jeremy Berry plays a viola by Giovanni Battista Ceruti c.1811, owned by a private benefactor and a 1903 Umberto Muschietti viola and plays a bow by Pierre Simon.
Estelle Choi plays a cello by Charles Jacquot c.1830
RECENT PRAISE
ALL MUSIC
A major new presence on the chamber music scene.
WASHINGTON CLASSICAL REVIEW
CHARLES T. DOWNEY
The Calidore String Quartet, since their remarkable Kennedy Center debut in 2018, has laid down a track record of sterling performances […] This performance showcased their exceptional ensemble cohesion, a careful melding of sound that avoids all harshness […] The group left no detail uncared for, including the careful styling of their mysterious unison tone when all four instruments came together.
BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE
MISHA DONAT
The New York- based Calidore Quartet gives meticulously detailed performances of Beethoven’s late string quartets, with playing of quite remarkable technical accomplishment. I’m not sure, for instance, that I’ve ever heard the tremendously challenging Op. 133 Fugue (the original finale of the Quartet Op. 130) done with greater precision and clarity, and it makes for quite an overwhelming experience. Elsewhere in these life-affirming works, the Calidore players penetrate right to the heart of the music, giving warm and intensely lyrical accounts in particular of the variation slow movements that form the expressive heart of nearly all the quartets, and of the famous ‘Cavatina’ from Op. 130 which reportedly reduced Beethoven himself to tears […] The players have clearly thought long and hard about these masterpieces of the string quartet repertoire, and they have produced performances that can stand comparison with the best.
Sociedad Filarmónica de València
José Doménech Part
Calidore Quartet, a chamber group of the highest quality displaying technical precision, global sound and the individual refinement of each musician. …They literally took the audience’s breath away thanks to the impeccable playing of Myers and Meehan’s admirable violins, Berry’s intense viola, and Choi’s unreserved dedication to cello.
THE ARTS FUSE
Jonathan Blumhofer
Taken together, [Babel] s one of the year’s best albums. When live musical performances return in a few month, the CSQ shouldn’t be missed. Until then, at least we have this superb release.
NEWS
Calidore String Quartet Wins BBC Music Magazine’s 2024 Chamber Award for Beethoven: The Late Quartets
The Calidore String Quartet is the recipient of the BBC Music Magazine 2024 Chamber Award for their recording of The Late Quartets of Beethoven. The three-disc set of Beethoven’s Quartets Nos. 12-16, released in February 2023 on Signum Classics, was lauded by BBC Music Magazine with this March 2023 five-star
Calidore Announced as Next Quartet to Perform Complete Beethoven Cycle at New York’s Lincoln Center
The Calidore String Quartet has earned the prestigious spot in Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s 24/25 season, performing the complete cycle of Beethoven’s String Quartets. Building on the tradition established by the Emerson String Quartet, the Calidore promises to deliver compelling performances throughout their six appearances on October 22 &
Vote Now! Calidore String Quartet, Degout and Pappano Nominated for the 2024 BBC Music Magazine Awards
Voting is open for the 2024 BBC Music Magazine Awards. The awards celebrate outstanding classical recordings across 9 categories from the previous year. This year’s nominees include Sir Antonio Pappano in the Opera category, Stéphane Degout in the Vocal category and Calidore String Quartet in the Chamber Music category. Click here…
Calidore String Quartet Returns to Ravinia with Beethoven
The Calidore String Quartet will perform at the Ravinia Festival this week on Thursday, June 29 at 7:30pm. They return after their debut appearance at the Festival, in which they joined the Emerson Quartet in a performance of the Mendelssohn Octet. Their program this year features quartets from Beethoven’s early, middle, and late phases:
Calidore Quartet’s New Beethoven Release “Can Stand Comparison with the Best” and a “Triumphant Return” to the Kennedy Center
BBC Music Magazine’s latest issue reviewed the Calidore Quartet’s Late Beethoven release, giving it the highest possible rating of five stars for both performance and recording quality. Misha Donat writes: “The New York- based Calidore Quartet gives meticulously detailed performances of Beethoven’s late string quartets, with playing of quite remarkable technical
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