Oct. 10: Telegraph Quartet Performs at Patricia Valian Reser Center for the Performing Arts (PRAx) – Presented by Chamber Music Corvallis
Photo of the Telegraph Quartet by Lisa Marie Mazzucco available in high resolution here.
Telegraph Quartet Performs at
Patricia Valian Reser Center for the Performing Arts (PRAx)
Presented by Chamber Music Corvallis
“full of elegance” – The New York Times
“precise tuning, textural variety and impassioned communication”
– The Strad
Saturday, October 10, 2026 at 7pm
Patricia Valian Reser Center for the Performing Arts (PRAx)
470 SW 15th St. | Corvallis, OR
More information
Corvallis, OR – On Saturday, October 10, 2026 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 being “an incredibly valuable addition to the cultural landscape,” will perform at the Patricia Valian Reser Center for the Performing Arts (PRAx) (470 SW 15th St.), presented by Corvallis Chamber Music.
The Telegraph formed in 2013 with an equal passion for standard and contemporary chamber music repertoire and rose quickly, winning the prestigious 2016 Walter W. Naumburg Chamber Music Award and the Grand Prize at the 2014 Fischoff Chamber Music Competition. Today, they perform across the United States and abroad, at venues including New York City’s Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and Town Hall; San Francisco’s Herbst Theatre; the Philharmonie de Paris; and at festivals including the Chautauqua Institute, Music in the Vineyards in Napa Valley, and the Emilia Romagna Festival in Italy. They are the Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
The Telegraph is known for its technical prowess and an appreciation for the history behind music. The celebrated group’s Corvallis performance features three emotionally rich works which all draw inspiration from other works in the composers’ catalogs, including Russian composer Dimitri Shostakovich’s Elegy and Polka; German composer Felix Mendelssohn’s String Quartet No. 2, Op. 13, “Es ist wahr?;” and Austrian-American composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s String Quartet No. 3 in D Major, Op. 34.
Shostakovich wrote Elegy and its companion piece Polka in a single night in 1931. Elegy is transcription of a haunting aria from his opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, while Polka is a version of a comical dance from his soccer-inspired ballet The Golden Age. These short pieces were lost for many years and not rediscovered until the 1980s when they were made available by the USSR State Copyright Agency. Mendelssohn wrote his String Quartet No. 2 in 1827 when he was just 18 years old. The passionate piece is heavily influenced by another great German composer, Ludwig van Beethoven, who had recently died. The title that Mendelssohn added, “Ist es wahr?" or “Is it true?,” quotes the first line of a song he had written just a few months earlier, "Is it true that you wait for me in the arbour by the vineyard wall?". Korngold’s String Quartet No. 3 was his last chamber music work, completed in 1945. Korngold was one of the most influential composers in Hollywood, and in his third string quartet he quoted from his scores for films including Between Two Worlds (1944), The Sea Wolf (1941), and Devotion (1943).
Telegraph Quartet has this to say about the program:
“This program mixes the earnest with the whimsical, juxtaposing Shostakovich's poignant Elegy and laugh-out-loud antics of the Polka as a microcosmic jumping-off-point for the program. This vein continues with Mendelssohn's youthfully earnest and masterful channelling of Beethoven's late quartet style in which Mendelssohn had immersed himself, while still retaining his characteristic scherzando nimbleness. And lastly, Korngold, the famed Hollywood composer of high adventure who imbedded themes of his popular scores into a work that contains the darkness and struggle of that war-time era, capped with the celebration of the victorious end of it!”
The Telegraph Quartet released its celebrated debut album Into The Light in 2018 and is currently recording an extensive three-album series titled 20th Century Vantage Points for Azica Records, exploring string quartets of the 20th century, including music by Ravel, Schoenberg, Britten, Bacewicz, and Weinberg. Of the first installment, Divergent Paths, The New York Times reported, “Every minute of their account sounds gripping and purposeful.” The second installment, Edge of the Storm, was named Album of the Year by Chamber Music America in 2025. Volume three will be released in fall 2027. Committed to recording music by living composers as well, the Telegraph also releases the string quartets of Robert Sirota in summer 2026 (Azica Records) and of Kenji Bunch in spring 2027 (Phenotypic Records).
Beyond the concert stage, the Telegraph Quartet seeks to spread its music through education and audience engagement. The Quartet has given master classes, served as artists-in-residence, and 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 Corvallis
What: Music by Dimitri Shostakovich, Felix Mendelssohn, and Erich Korngold
When: Saturday, October 10, 2026 at 7pm
Where: Patricia Valian Reser Center for the Performing Arts (PRAx), 470 SW 15th St., Corvallis, OR 97331
Tickets and information: https://prax.oregonstate.edu/events/chamber-music-corvallis-telegraph-quartet
Description: The award-winning Telegraph Quartet, a group described by The Strad as having “precise tuning, textural variety and impassioned communication,” performs a concert presented by Chamber Music Corvallis. The emotionally rich, musically complex program features Shostakovich’s Elegy and Polka, Mendelssohn’s String Quartet No. 2, Op. 13, “Es ist wahr?” and Korngold’s String Quartet No. 3 in D Major, Op. 34.