Oct. 30: Movie Night Recital Presented by Telegraph Quartet – University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance Quartet-in-Residence
Photo of the Telegraph Quartet by Lisa Marie Mazzucco available in high resolution here.
Telegraph Quartet Presents Movie Night
University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance Quartet-in-Residence
Friday, October 30, 2026, at 7:30pm
Stamps Auditorium at the Walgreen Drama Center
1226 Murfin Ave. | Ann Arbor, MI | Free and Open to the Public
More Information | Livestream Here
“precise tuning, textural variety and impassioned communication” – The Strad
Ann Arbor, MI – On Friday, October 30, 2026, at 7:30pm, the Telegraph Quartet, quartet-in-residence with the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance, will present its first university recital of the season in Stamps Auditorium at the Walgreen Drama Center. The concert, titled Movie Night, features a screening of the 1924 Buster Keaton silent film Sherlock Jr., with a film score by composer Stephen Prutsman performed live by the Telegraph Quartet with recent U-M doctoral graduate, pianist Takeshi Nagayasu. The program also includes two other works influenced by film or staged works – Dimitri Shostakovich’s Elegy and Polka, and Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s String Quartet No. 3 in D Major, Op. 34.
The Telegraph (Eric Chin and Joseph Maile, violins; Pei-Ling Lin, viola; Jeremiah Shaw, cello) formed in 2013 with an equal passion for standard and contemporary chamber music repertoire; they 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.
A stylistically versatile composer, Prutsman has written scores to accompany several of Buster Keaton’s silent films – many of which are decidedly comedic. For this story, which involves a dream sequence, a secret theft, a wild villain chase, and pining after a love interest, Prutsman turns to an assortment of tones, rhythms, and musical techniques in order to emphasize the emotional stakes throughout the film. Shostakovich wrote Elegy and its companion piece Polka in a single night in 1931. Elegy is the 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. 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).
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. The first volume, Divergent Paths (2022), features two works that (to the best of the Telegraph 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. In August 2025, the Telegraph released the second volume, Edge of the Storm, which examines the turbulent years of war and its aftermath from 1941-1951 through string quartets by Grażyna Bacewicz, Benjamin Britten, and Mieczysław Weinberg. Volume three will be released in fall 2027. In addition, the Telegraph released a recording of the string quartets of Robert Sirota in summer 2026 (Azica Records) and will release a recording of Kenji Bunch string quartets in spring 2027 (Phenotypic Records).
Beyond the concert stage, the Telegraph Quartet seeks to spread its music through education and audience engagement. The Telegraph has given master classes, served as artists-in-residence, and launched ChamberFEAST!, a chamber music workshop in Taiwan. In fall 2020, the 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.
Concert details:
Who: Telegraph Quartet Presents Movie Night
Presented by the University of Michigan
What: Music by Stephen Prutsman, Dimitri Shostakovich, and Erich Korngold
When: Friday, October 30, 2026, at 7:30pm
Where: Stamps Auditorium at the Walgreen Drama Center, 1226 Murfin Ave, Ann Arbor, MI 48109
More information: (Free and Open to the Public): https://smtd.umich.edu/event/30-october-2026-3/
Livestream: https://smtd.umich.edu/live-stream-stamps/
Description: The Telegraph Quartet – the quartet-in-residence at the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance – presents Movie Night, the group’s first faculty recital of the 2026-2027 season. The program includes Sherlock Jr. by Stephen Prutsman, the score for Buster Keaton’s 1924 silent film of the same name; Dimitri Shostakovich’s Elegy and Polka; and Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s String Quartet No. 3 in D Major, Op. 34. The latter will be performed live by Telegraph and recent U-M doctoral graduate Takeshi Nagayasu on piano, alongside a screening of the film.