March 15: The Telegraph Quartet Presented by the University of Michigan – Performing the Music of Kenji Bunch and George Rochberg
Photo of the Telegraph Quartet by Lisa Marie Mazzucco available in high resolution here.
The Telegraph Quartet Presented by the University of Michigan
Performing the Music of Kenji Bunch and George Rochberg
Stamps Auditorium at the Walgreen Drama Center
1226 Murfin Ave. | Ann Arbor, MI | Free and Open to the Public
Sunday, March 15, 2026, at 4pm
More Information | Livestream Here
“precise tuning, textural variety and impassioned communication” – The Strad
Ann Arbor, MI – The Telegraph Quartet (Eric Chin and Joseph Maile, violins; Pei-Ling Lin, viola; Jeremiah Shaw, cello), a group The New York Times describes as “full of elegance and pinpoint control,” will be presented in concert by the University of Michigan on Sunday, March 15, 2026, at 4pm. The concert will take place in Stamps Auditorium at the Walgreen Drama Center (1226 Murfin Ave.). The Telegraph Quartet is the current quartet-in-residence at the University of Michigan’s School of Music, Theatre & Dance. The performance will be free and open to the public and will be livestreamed.
Known for their technical prowess and appreciation for the history behind the music, the Telegraph Quartet brings fluid synchronicity and refined artistry to a program that showcases the work of two contemporary American composers, Kenji Bunch (b. 1973) and George Rochberg (1918 – 2005). The ensemble will perform Kenji Bunch’s String Quartet No. 5, Music for a Shared Space, and George Rochberg’s String Quartet No. 3. Bunch’s fifth string quartet encrypts beautiful lines from the second movement of W.A. Mozart’s divertimenti, which pulse throughout the work, culminating in a joyous, rocking final anthem. Rochberg’s String Quartet No. 3 was born of profound loss and a longing for meaning. Rochberg breaks from strict modernism and rebuilds his musical world using memory, woven into something newly vulnerable. The resulting quartet feels like a raw confession of grief and slow recovery of beauty.
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.
Of these two works, the Telegraph Quartet says:
“Despite being written 50 years apart, both the Rochberg and the Bunch share a kinship as art that finds its voice and power by embodying the styles of others as their own. Rochberg's String Quartet No. 3 marked a turning point for this composer, who released himself from only composing in a dissonant, academically acceptable 20th-century style. Instead, he allowed himself what was then the heresy of speaking fluently in the musical language of past composers like Mahler and late Beethoven, juxtaposing those with his former thorny modernist dialect. Similarly, Kenji Bunch's Music for a Shared Space accomplishes something very similar; between Afro-funk grooves and rhythm and blues versions of Mozart divertimenti, we find Bunch moving fluently from one popular style to the next and sweetly mixing that music with those of the past, continuing this opening of styles, cultural and chronological, that Rochberg dared to break open during his time.”
More about Telegraph Quartet: The Telegraph Quartet has performed in concert halls and at 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, as part of 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.
In August 2023, the Telegraph Quartet released 20th Century Vantage Points: Divergent Paths, the first in a trilogy of recordings on Azica Records exploring the string quartets of the first half of the 20th century – an era of music that the group has felt especially called to perform since its formation. Divergent Paths 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. The Quartet’s new album, 20th Century Vantage Points: Edge of the Storm, is out now on Azica Records. Read the press release online. This second volume of the trilogy examines music from the turbulent war years of 1941-1951 and features a thoughtfully curated program of works by Grażyna Bacewicz, Benjamin Britten, and Mieczysław Weinberg.
Beyond the concert stage, the Telegraph Quartet seeks to spread its music through education and audience engagement. The Telegraph 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 the University of Michigan
What: Music by Kenji Bunch and George Rochberg
When: Sunday, March 15, 2026, at 4pm
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/15-march-2026-4/
Livestream: https://smtd.umich.edu/live-stream-stamps/
Description: The Telegraph Quartet – quartet-in-residence at the University of Michigan, a group The New York Times describes as being “full of elegance and pinpoint control” – is presented in concert by the University of Michigan on March 15, 2026. The group will perform a program that showcases the work of two contemporary American composers: String Quartet No. 5, Music for a Shared Space, by Kenji Bunch and String Quartet No. 3 by George Rochberg.