May 2: Shriver Hall Concert Series Presents The Calidore String Quartet in Dvorak, Schubert, and World Premiere by Hannah Lash

 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Katy Salomon | Morahan Arts and Media
katy@morahanartsandmedia.com | 863.660.2214

Shriver Hall Concert Series Presents 
The Calidore String Quartet, May 2

A Digital Premiere Concert Featuring Dvorák, Schubert,
and the World Premiere of Hannah Lash’s String Quartet No. 1

“Synergistic brilliance and ferocious commitment.”  – The New York Times

www.shriverconcerts.org
 

Baltimore, Maryland (April 13, 2021) —  Shriver Hall Concert Series (SHCS) — Baltimore’s premier presenter of chamber music ensembles and solo recitalists — presents a world premiere digital recital by the Calidore String Quartet on Sunday, May 2, 2021 at 5:30pm ET. The program includes Dvorák’s String Quartet No. 12 in F Major, Op. 96. "American" and Schubert’s String Quartet No. 15 in G Major, D. 887, as well as the streaming world premiere of composer Hannah Lash’s (b. 1981) String Quartet No. 1. The concert was recorded in a private home in New York. 

Hannah Lash considers her String Quartet No. 1 her “most ambitious string quartet to date,” hence “worthy of being numbered as such.” She says, “In four movements, this piece seeks to place itself within the context of large string quartets, while simultaneously breaking from the genre altogether in the third movement. There is a song in the third movement, sung by the cellist. Suddenly lyrics come into play: language within an otherwise wordless context. It arrives in the final portion of this expansive movement, presented in the simplest possible manner with sparse accompaniment and a featured vocal line, appearing suddenly – something of a pop song – rupturing the surrounding music, and then disappearing as quickly as it appeared as the fourth movement begins. The four-movement form plays with the idea of thematic interconnectedness, though each movement presents its own unique character within the whole. Certain motivic mutations become obsessions. To me, building the piece felt akin to building a symphony. The ambition of the form, however, aims not at technical bravura, but at deep, sometimes wrenching expressivity – a song at the heart of the entire piece.”

The Calidore String Quartet expresses, “We are thrilled to be able to present this virtual performance for the Shriver Hall Concert Series! We have an exciting program prepared with two of the great masterworks ever written for string quartet paired with a never heard virtual premiere of String Quartet No. 1 by Hannah Lash. We would like to thank the Shriver Hall Concert Series for making this event possible. As the pandemic has brought the careers of touring chamber music ensembles to a crashing halt, it is only through the kindness and hard work of organizations such as the Shriver Hall Concert Series that we have been able to continue our craft and reach audiences across the country. Thank you!”

Ticket holders can watch the concert on demand for a week after the premiere and also have access to a post-concert chat with the Quartet, moderated by Shriver Hall Concert Series Executive Director Catherine Cochran. 

Concert Information
Calidore String Quartet
Sunday, May 2, 2021 at 5:30pm ET
Tickets: $15. Tickets include concert access and on-demand streaming of the concert for one week following, plus access to a post-concert Artist Conversation. 
Link: www.shriverconcerts.org/calidore

DVORÁK: String Quartet No. 12 in F Major, Op. 96. "American"
     I. Allegro ma non troppo
     II. Lento
     III. Molto vivace
     IV. Finale: vivace ma non troppo

HANNAH LASH: String Quartet No. 1 [Streaming World Premiere]
     I.
     II.
     III.
     IV.

SCHUBERT: String Quartet No. 15 in G Major, D. 887
     I. Allegro molto moderato
     II. Andante un poco moto
     III. Scherzo: Allegro vivace with trio: Allegretto
     IV. Allegro assai

Performance to be followed by Artist Conversation with Shriver Hall Concert Series Executive Director Catherine Cochran

*Hannah Lash's String Quartet No. 1 is commissioned for the Calidore Quartet by Elizabeth and Justus Schlichting for Segerstrom Center for the Arts’ Chamber Music Series, by the Shriver Hall Concert Series, and by the Fonds Kleine Zaal of the Royal Concertgebouw, a fund which is managed by Het Concertgebouw Fonds. Segerstrom Center for the Arts is the lead commissioner and co-presenter of Hannah Lash's String Quartet No. 1 and will present the live performance world premiere in February 2022.

About the Calidore String Quartet
The Calidore String Quartet has been praised by The New York Times for its “deep reserves of virtuosity and irrepressible dramatic instinct.” The Los Angeles Times described the quartet as “astonishing,” their playing “shockingly deep,” approaching “the kind of sublimity other quartets spend a lifetime searching” and praised its balance of “intellect and expression.” The Washington Post has said that “Four more individual musicians are unimaginable, yet these speak, breathe, think and feel as one.”  

Recipient of a 2018 Avery Fisher Career Grant and a 2017 Lincoln Center Emerging Artist Award, the Calidore String Quartet first made international headlines as winner of the $100,000 Grand Prize of the 2016 M-Prize International Chamber Music Competition. The quartet was the first North American ensemble to win the Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship, was a BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist, and is currently in residence with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Bowers Program. 

During the 20/21 season heavily affected by the pandemic, the Calidore have continued to reach out to online audiences performing in empty concert halls or from their home studio including the opening concert of the newly created series by the Chamber Music Society in New York, a rare outdoor performance on the Lincoln Center Plaza and streamed concerts from the Caramoor Festival and the Music@Menlo Festival. In 2021, the Calidore will premiere a new string quartet by Hannah Lash commissioned by the Segerstrom Center for the Arts, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw and Baltimore’s Shriver Hall. In February 2021, the Calidore began their recording of the complete Beethoven String Quartet cycle for Signum Records. 

In the 2019?20 season, the Calidore String Quartet celebrated both its tenth anniversary and the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth by presenting cycles of his string quartets at the Colburn School in Los Angeles, and the Universities of Buffalo, Toronto, and Delaware. Additionally, the Calidore premiered a new work by composer Anna Clyne inspired by Beethoven’s Grosse Fuge and commissioned by Music Accord in performances at Lincoln Center, Princeton University, Penn State University, Caramoor, San Francisco Performances, and Boston’s Celebrity Series. In Europe, the Calidore performed in series in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Denmark, Poland, Spain, and Switzerland. 

Highlights of recent seasons have included performances in major venues throughout North America, Europe, and Asia such as Carnegie Hall, Wigmore Hall, Kennedy Center, Berlin Konzerthaus, Brussels BOZAR, Cologne Philharmonie, Seoul’s Kumho Arts Hall, and at significant festivals including the BBC Proms, Verbier, Ravinia, Mostly Mozart, Music@Menlo, Rheingau, East Neuk, and Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.

The Calidore String Quartet’s second Signum album, entitled BABEL, was released in October 2020 and features works by Schumann, Shostakovich and Caroline Shaw. The Strad praised it as “breathtaking…a universally impressive disc”. The quartet’s other recordings include 2018’s Resilience including “lively, intelligent performances of an attractive and thought-provoking program” (Gramophone) of quartets by Mendelssohn, Prokofiev, Janácek, and Golijov; quartets by Tchaikovsky and Mendelssohn recorded at the 2016 Music@Menlo festival; their debut album of quartets by Mendelssohn and Haydn, and an album of music commemorating the World War I centennial.

The Calidore’s members were Young Artists in Residence on American Public Media’s Performance Today, and their performances have been broadcast on NPR, the BBC, the CBC, SiriusXM Satellite Radio, Korean Broadcasting System, Bayerischer Rundfunk (Munich), Norddeutscher Rundfunk (Hamburg), and were aired on German national television as part of a documentary produced by ARD public broadcasting.

The Calidore has given world premieres of works by Caroline Shaw, Hannah Lash, Mark-Anthony Turnage, and Benjamin Dean Taylor. Its collaborations with esteemed artists and ensembles include Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Marc-André Hamelin, Joshua Bell, David Shifrin, Inon Barnatan, Lawrence Power, Sharon Isbin, David Finckel and Wu Han among others. The Calidore has collaborated and studied closely with the Emerson Quartet and Quatuor Ébène, and has also studied with Andre Roy, Arnold Steinhardt, Günter Pichler, Guillaume Sutre, Paul Coletti, and Ronald Leonard, among others.

As a passionate supporter of music education, the Calidore String Quartet is committed to mentoring and educating young musicians, students, and audiences. The Calidore serves as quartet in residence at the University of Delaware and the University of Toronto. It has conducted residencies at Stanford, the University of Michigan, the Colburn School and Stony Brook University.

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. An amalgamation of “California” and “doré” (French for “golden”), the ensemble’s name represents its reverence for the diversity of culture and the strong support it received from its original home: Los Angeles, California, the “golden state.” 

About Shriver Hall Concert Series
Founded in 1966, Shriver Hall Concert Series has been Baltimore’s premier presenter of chamber music ensembles and solo recitalists with the mission of making music consonant with the highest aspirations of musical art, creating performances and providing educational training programs at the highest level of excellence for more than 50 years. Presenting its coveted Subscription Series each year, free Discovery Series concerts around the Greater-Baltimore area, and other special events, the Series has featured many of the world’s most renowned soloists and ensembles. The Series has been called “Baltimore’s finest importer of classical music talent” by The Sun and is the five-time recipient of Baltimore Magazine’s distinction “Best Classical Music” in its annual “Best of Baltimore” issue. For more information, visit www.shriverconcerts.org.

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Photo Credit: Calidore String Quartet by Marco Borggreve