Nov. 12: Telegraph Quartet Performs in A Musical Call for Climate Action - in person & livestreamed from Vienna and San Francisco

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Press contact: Maggie Stapleton, Jensen Artists
646.536.7864 x2, maggie@jensenartists.com

Telegraph Quartet Performs Richard Festinger’s Icarus in Flight
Presented by The ClimateMusic Project in Partnership with Friday Nights with Yury Revich

Friday, November 12, 2021 at 11am PT
San Francisco Conservatory of Music | 50 Oak Street | San Francisco, CA

In-Person Tickets Available Here
Free Live Streaming Tickets (11am PT / 2pm ET / 8pm CET) Available Here

Watch a video of the Telegraph Quartet performing an excerpt from Icarus in Flight

www.telegraphquartet.com

San Francisco, CA – On Friday, November 12, 2021, at 11am PT the Telegraph Quartet, winner of the 2016 Naumburg Chamber Music Award, will perform on Live from Vienna and San Francisco: A Musical Call for Climate Action, presented by The ClimateMusic Project and Friday Nights with Yury Revich. The Telegraph’s performance will take place for live audiences at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and will be available to stream online at 11am PT / 2pm ET / 8pm CET, with additional live performances from Vienna.

The Telegraph Quartet will perform Richard Festinger’s string quartet, Icarus in Flight, a musical representation of climate change data from 1880 to 2080 with projected simulations. Festinger collaborated with The ClimateMusic Project for over a year to create the piece, which models three human drivers of climate change – population growth, carbon emissions, and land-use change – based on widely accepted United Nations data. This is the Telegraph Quartet’s first performance of the work since they premiered it in June 2018 at the Noe Valley Ministry in San Francisco.

Live from Vienna and San Francisco: A Musical Call for Climate Action also includes a diverse array of world class artists performing climate-themed music from across the ages and across music genres, from classical to hip hop, culminating in a wide range of climate actions and resources appropriate for individuals from all backgrounds and circumstances to participate in and share. More information is available at www.climatemusic.org/events.

About the 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 the standard chamber music repertoire and contemporary, non-standard works alike. 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 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 on the chamber music faculty at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music as the Quartet-in-Residence.

Notable collaborations include projects with pianists Leon Fleisher and Simone Dinnerstein; cellists Norman Fischer and Bonnie Hampton; violinist Ian Swensen; composer-vocalist Theo Bleckmann; and the Henschel Quartett. A fervent champion of 20th- and 21st-century repertoire, the Telegraph Quartet has premiered works by John Harbison, 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 San Francisco Chronicle praised the album, saying, "Just five years after forming, the Bay Area’s Telegraph Quartet has established itself as an ensemble of serious depth and versatility, and the group’s terrific debut recording only serves to reinforce that judgment." AllMusic acclaimed, “An impressive beginning for an adventurous group, this 2018 release puts the Telegraph Quartet on the map.

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.

The Telegraph Quartet adapted to the challenging times presented by the COVID-19 pandemic and performed virtual concerts presented by the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Crowden Chamber Music Workshop, Noe Music, Noontime Concerts, Music in Corrales, and Intermusic SF. For Earth Day 2020 (the 50th anniversary of Earth Day), the National Academy of Science in collaboration with the ClimateMusic Project hosted a virtual performance by the Telegraph Quartet of Richard Festinger’s Icarus in Flight. In 2020, Telegraph launched an ongoing 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, please visit www.telegraphquartet.com.

About Richard Festinger: Composer Richard Festinger has garnered international recognition for his extensive catalogue of vocal and instrumental compositions. Writing for the 2011 Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music, Frank J. Oteri describes Festinger’s music as “notable for its combination of propulsive energy with an impeccable sense of poise and balance,” and WQXR in New York has dubbed him “an American master.” He is an emeritus professor of San Francisco State University, where he taught for 30 years and directed the Morrison Artists Series of chamber music concerts. Before turning to composing Festinger led his own groups as a jazz performer. He received M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in composition from the University of California, Berkeley, and in the mid 1980s co-founded the acclaimed San Francisco based modern music ensemble Earplay. Festinger’s music is published by C.F. Peters Corporation and Wildcat Canyon Music Press, and his works have been recorded for the Naxos, Bridge, CRI, Centaur, and CRS labels. He has received major awards and commissions from the Jerome Foundation, the Fromm Foundation at Harvard University, the Koussevitzky Foundation in the Library of Congress, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Aaron Copland Fund for Music, the Argosy Foundation, the Barlow Foundation, the Mary Flagler Cary Trust, the Pew Charitable Trust, the Philadelphia Music Project, Meet the Composer, the American Music Center, and the American Composers Forum. He is a recipient of the George Ladd Grand Prix de Paris, and has received both the Walter Hinrichsen Award and an Academy Recording Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

About The ClimateMusic Project: The ClimateMusic Project is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, collaboration of renowned scientists and world-class musicians, who create musical and visual experiences guided by the scientific data on climate change. ClimateMusic leverages the emotional power of music in a variety of genres to build understanding of the urgency of the climate crisis among diverse communities. The Project is connected to a growing network of climate action groups that provide audiences with a direct pathway to action. ClimateMusic has performed for audiences throughout the Bay Area and internationally including performances for the World Bank, the National Academy of Sciences, and top global universities and museums. The group has been featured in global press outlets, including The New York Times, BBC, CityLab, The Verge, Neon, NPR, and La Repubblica. For more information about The ClimateMusic Project, please visit: www.climatemusic.org

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