Aug. 14-15: Telegraph Quartet Presented by the Chamber Music Festival of Saugatuck in Two Performances
Photo of the Telegraph Quartet by Lisa Marie Mazzucco available in high resolution here.
Telegraph Quartet Gives Two Performances
Presented by the Chamber Music Festival of Saugatuck
Featuring the Music of
Henry Cowell, Franz Joseph Haydn, and Ludwig van Beethoven
August 14-15, 2025 at 7pm
Saugatuck Woman's Club | 303 Butler St. | Saugatuck, MI
Tickets and More Information
“precise tuning, textural variety and impassioned communication" – The Strad
Saugatuck, MI – On Thursday, August 14 and Friday, August 15, 2025 at 7pm, the Telegraph Quartet (Eric Chin and Joseph Maile, violins; Pei-Ling Lin, viola; Jeremiah Shaw, cello), a group described by The San Francisco Chronicle as having "tonal warmth and communicative urgency,” will give two performances presented by the Chamber Music Festival of Saugatuck. Both concerts will be held at the Saugatuck Woman's Club (303 Butler St.).
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.
The Quartet’s next album, 20th Century Vantage Points: Edge of the Storm will be released August 22, 2025 on Azica Records and continues the Telegraph Quartet’s exploration of creativity and composition in the 20th century, specifically examining music from the turbulent war years of 1941-1951. The second volume features a thoughtfully curated program of string quartets by Grażyna Bacewicz, Benjamin Britten, and Mieczysław Weinberg.
Known for their technical prowess and appreciation for the history behind music, the Telegraph Quartet bring their refined synchronicity and artistic finesse to a concert program that embraces contrast in expression and musical form as a way to underscore the depth of human emotions and the acme of musical virtuosity. The program includes: United, String Quartet No. 4 by Henry Cowell; String Quartet in C Major Op. 54 No. 2 by Franz Joseph Haydn; and String Quartet in F Major, Op. 59 No. 1 by Ludwig van Beethoven.
Neither Henry Cowell’s musical peers nor his public audiences fully appreciated Cowell’s approach to applying familiar and more popular leaning musical structures in his work. In a statement Cowell included with the publication of the United Quartet, he says the piece “is an attempt toward a more universal music style.” Though Haydn’s String Quartet in C Major Op. 54 was written nearly 150 years before Cowell’s work, Haydn’s quartet evokes a similar spirit of ambition and experimentation with musical form. The intricacy and deeply expressive nature of the melodies across its four movements reflected Haydn’s engaging instincts as a composer. Unlike the experimental pursuits of Cowell and Haydn, Beethoven’s String Quartet in F Major, Op. 59 No. 1 grounds itself with consistency, thanks in part to its F major key signature – the tonal center of Beethoven’s first and very last quartets, as well as his iconic Pastorale Symphony No. 6. And like its cousin compositions, the String Quartet in F Major, Op. 59 No. 1 shrewdly carves and traverses a vast emotional landscape from heavy, despondency to the brightest of finales.
Telegraph Quartet says of bringing this deeply expressive program to Saugatuck:
“We’re very excited to bring this program to the Saugatuck audiences this summer and feel that Beethoven, Haydn and Cowell all three find a way to masterfully combine simplicity and tunefulness with a deeply cohesive musical architecture.”
In August 2023, the Telegraph Quartet released 20th Century Vantage Points: Divergent Paths, the first in a trilogy of recordings, on Azica Records. The 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.
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.
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 Chamber Music Festival of Saugatuck
What: Music by Henry Cowell, Franz Joseph Haydn, and Ludwig van Beethoven
When: Thursday, August 14 and Friday August 15, 2025 at 7pm
Where: Saugatuck Woman's Club, 303 Butler St. Saugatuck, MI 49453
Tickets and information: www.saugatuckmusic.org/events/telegraph-quartet
Description: The award-winning Telegraph Quartet, a group described by The San Francisco Chronicle as having "tonal warmth and communicative urgency,” will give two performances as part of the Chamber Music Festival of Saugatuck. For both concerts, the Quartet will perform String Quartet No. 4 United by Henry Cowell, String Quartet in C Major Op. 54 by Franz Joseph Haydn, and String Quartet in F Major, Op. 59 by Ludwig van Beethoven – a program that embraces the expressive potential of contrast as a way to evoke and underscore the strongest of emotions and musical virtuosity.