Mar. 19: Telegraph Quartet and Soprano Abigail Fischer Presented by Chamber Music at the Clark
Telegraph Quartet and Soprano Abigail Fischer
Presented by Chamber Music at the Clark
Performing Music by Haydn, Schoenberg, and Beethoven
L-R Telegraph Quartet, Abigail Fischer
Sunday, March 19, 2023 at 2pm
William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
2520 Cimarron Street | Los Angeles, CA
Tickets and more information:
www.1718.ucla.edu/events/telegraph-with-fischer
“The programming … bespeaks a wonderful boldness of spirit, and the
[Quartet’s] performances, which are vibrant and full of exploratory fervor, follow
through beautifully.” – San Francisco Chronicle
www.telegraphquartet.com | www.abigailfischer.com
Los Angeles, CA – On Sunday, March 19, 2023 at 2pm, the Telegraph Quartet (Eric Chin and Joseph Maile, violins; Pei-Ling Lin, viola; Jeremiah Shaw, cello) and soprano Abigail Fischer will be presented by Chamber Music at the Clark at UCLA in a performance that will take place in the William Andrew Clark Memorial Library (2520 Cimarron Street).
The Telegraph Quartet appreciates with an equal passion standard chamber music repertoire and contemporary, non-standard works alike. The San Francisco-based group formed in 2013 and is celebrating their tenth season together. For this concert, the Telegraph Quartet will perform music spanning three centuries, including Joseph Haydn’s String Quartet in F-major, Opus 50, No. 5 (1787); and Ludwig van Beethoven’s String Quartet in A Minor No. 15 Op. 132 (1825). Abigail Fischer will join the Quartet for their performance of Arnold Schoenberg’s String Quartet No. 2 Op. 10 for soprano and string quartet.
Of having another opportunity to collaborate on a performance with Abigail Fischer, Telegraph says: “It is our pleasure to finally collaborate with Abigail on this seminal work of Schoenberg’s, and its unique pairing of string quartet and soprano. Schoenberg himself took a dramatic change of course when writing this work and deciding to include a soprano as a vessel for the Stefan George text to transcend the standard string quartet form. This stretching of the tradition both in ensemble form and harmonic approach underscores his desire to find a new way to express himself, embodying fully the sentiments of the poem set to the fourth movement which begins ‘I breathe the air of another planet.’.”
Haydn’s String Quartet in F-major, Opus 50, No. 5 presents defined shifts in tonality and form –– a quality that distinguishes the music from its predecessor, String Quartet in F-Sharp minor Op. 50 No. 4. The connections and evolutions between existing musical ideas and subsequent expansions thereof in the music, are easier to appreciate in this piece. Schoenberg’s second string quartet looks back on the overly ripe German romanticism of the past, while staring unflinchingly into the new sound worlds of the future.
The third movement of Beethoven’s String Quartet in A Minor included the title, Heiliger Dankgesangeines Genesenen an die Gottheit, in der lydischen Tonart, which translates to Song of Thanksgiving to the Deity from a convalescent in the Lydian mode. This signified Beethoven’s gratitude after the worst of his recent illness had subsided.
More about the Telegraph Quartet: 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 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. They have collaborated 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 20 th - and 21 st -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. In spring 2023, the Telegraph Quartet will release its next album on Azica Records, featuring Ravel’s
renowned quartet and Schoenberg’s first quartet.
Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, the Quartet is currently on the chamber music faculty at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music as the Quartet-in-Residence and has given master classes at the SFCM 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 and 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. For more information, visit www.telegraphquartet.com.
About Abigail Fischer: Versatile vocalist Abigail Fischer has made a vibrant career soloing with ensembles such as the Kansas City Symphony, Milwaukee Symphony, Rhode Island Symphony, Virginia Symphony, Boston Baroque, and Mercury Orchestra Houston. With the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Fischer performed semi-staged versions of Strauss's Salome and Midsummer Night's Dream. Missy Mazzoli's first opera, Song from the Uproar, written for her and the NOW Ensemble, is a one-woman show that has been seen at Los Angeles Opera, Chautauqua Opera, and at Cincinnati Opera.
Known for her “serenely captivating” work in opera, “and disarming intimacy,” (The New York Times) Fischer has performed two daring alternative productions of Carmen in Boulder, Colorado and Rockport, Maine and reprised the one-woman show Toshio Hosokawa's The Raven in Bolzano, Italy for her Italian stage debut. Fischer has sung the title role in Rape of Lucretia with Opera Memphis, has premiered Lee Hoiby's This is the Rill Speaking with American Opera Projects, has sung Cenerentola with Union Avenue (in Italian) and Salt Marsh Opera (in English), and Angels in America with LA Philharmonic. One of herfavorite pieces is Lieberson's Neruda Songs, which she performed with the Columbus Symphony. Other recent premieres at the “suddenly indispensable” Prototype Festival have included Mrs. X.E. in Du Yun/Royce Vavrek's Angel's Bone (which won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Musical Composition) and The Mother in Stefan Weisman/David Cote's Scarlet Ibis. With Gotham Chamber Opera, Fischer performed Testo in Monteverdi's Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda and Eva in Martinu's Comedy on the Bridge.
Recordings of Fischer's includes the operas Song from the Uproar (Missy Mazzoli), The Judgement of Midas (Kamran Ince); the oratorios Haydn Lord Nelson Mass (Boston Baroque), Katrina Ballads (Ted Hearne); and the chamber works Mothertongue (Nico Muhly), The Quality of Mercy (Patrick Castillo), and numerous works of John Zorn. A graduate of Eastman School of Music (MM), and Vassar College (BA), Lorenzo di Medici in Florence, Italy (Certificate in Italian language and literature), Fischer also traversed the summer scenes of Tanglewood Music Festival, Aspen Music Festival, Marlboro Music Festival,
Songfest, and the Chautauqua Voice Program, among others. For more information, visit www.abigailfischer.com.
About Chamber Music at the Clark: An annual series established in 1994, Chamber Music at the Clark
presents internationally acclaimed ensembles and soloists in the drawing room of the William Andrews
Clark Memorial Library. The series, which usually hosts seven concerts each year, honors the musical
passion of William Andrews Clark Jr., an accomplished violinist and founder of the Los Angeles
Philharmonic.
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