Jan. 26: Telegraph Quartet Presented by Auditorium Chamber Music Series at the University of Idaho
Performing Music by Gabriela Lena Frank, Joseph Haydn, and Ludwig Van Beethoven
Photo by Lisa Marie Mazzucco available in high resolution at www.jensenartists.com/telegraph-quartet
Thursday, January 26, 2023 at 7:30pm University Auditorium at The University of Idaho 851 Campus Drive | Moscow, ID
Tickets and more information: www.uidaho.edu/class/acms/concerts/telegraph
“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
Telegraph Quartet: www.telegraphquartet.com
Moscow, ID – On Thursday, January 26, 2023 at 7:30pm the Telegraph Quartet (Eric Chin and Joseph Maile, violins; Pei-Ling Lin, viola; Jeremiah Shaw, cello) will be presented by the Auditorium Chamber Music Series at The University of Idaho. The performance will be held in the University Auditorium (851 Campus Drive).
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 an assortment of works across three centuries, including Joseph Haydn’s String Quartet in F-major, Opus 50, No. 5 (1787); Ludwig van Beethoven’s String Quartet in A Minor No. 15 Op. 132 (1825); and Gabriela Lena Frank’s Leyendas: An Andean Walkabout, (2001).
Of this program, which blends traditional and modern music for string quartet, Telegraph says:
“We’re so happy to kick off 2023 with a wonderful composer and Bay Area colleague of ours - Gabriella Lena Frank and her string quartet! Getting to reshape our quartet to channel the striking sounds and traditions of Gabriella’s Peruvian heritage is both a humbling challenge and an ear-opening experience for us. It is even more striking in its use of the quartet color palette when flanked by two composers of the High Classical style, the origin of the string quartet itself, where we get to experience extreme ends of that style, between Haydn’s tongue-and-cheek humor and Beethoven’s haunting and deeply spiritual late-quartet style.”
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. Motifs are introduced and established before the music moves on, steadily developing new ideas among the parts in a clearer and more linear fashion. Themes are revisited through recapitulation but the connections and evolutions between existing musical ideas and subsequent expansions thereof in the music, are easier to appreciate in this piece.
Gabriela Lena Frank explains that “Leyendas: An Andean Walkabout draws inspiration from the idea of mestizaje, as envisioned by Peruvian writer José María Arguedas, where cultures can coexist without the subjugation of one by the other. As such, this piece mixes elements from the western classical and Andean folk music traditions.” The strings invoke the colors and playing styles of traditional Andean instruments, including the panpipe, tarka, guitar- like charango, and the quena flute.
Beethoven’s String Quartet in A Minor is one of three — Op. 127, 132, and 130 — that were commissioned by Russian nobleman, Prince Nikolai Borisovich Galitzin. This piece gives a particularly strong reflection of Beethoven’s health, which was in a place of severe decline at the time he was working on this composition. The impact on Beethoven’s creativity was so great that the piece’s third movement, which moves at a much slower tempo, came to include the title, Heiliger Dankgesang eines Genesenen an die Gottheit, in der lydischen Tonart –– which translates to Song of Thanksgiving to the Deity from a convalescent in the Lydian mode –– signifying the composer’s gratitude after the worst of his 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 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 on the chamber music faculty at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music as the Quartet-in-Residence.
Notable collaborations include projects 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 20th- and 21st-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. The San Francisco Chronicle praised the album, saying, "Just five years after forming, the Bay Area’s Telegraph Quartet has established itself as an ensemble of serious depth and versatility, and the group’s terrific debut recording only serves to reinforce that judgment." AllMusic acclaimed, “An impressive beginning for an adventurous group, this 2018 release puts the Telegraph Quartet on the map.” In spring 2023, the Telegraph Quartet will release its next album on Azica Records, featuring Ravel’s renowned quartet and Schoenberg’s first quartet.
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.
Highlights of Telegraph Quartet’s 2022-23 season include performances presented by Stanford Live, The Argyros, Emerald City Music, UCLA's Chamber Music at the Clark, Chicago Chamber Music Society, Carmel Music Society, South Mountain Concerts, and many others, as well as a residency at the University of Idaho as part of the Auditorium Chamber Music Series. Telegraph will also perform residency concerts at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. For more information, visit www.telegraph quartet.com.
About the Auditorium Chamber Music Series: Since 1986, the Auditorium Chamber Music Series has presented some of the world's finest small ensembles in the beautiful neo-gothic auditorium in the heart of the University of Idaho campus. Four ensembles visit the Palouse each year, performing for the series and enriching the region through school residencies, informal performances in community venues and master classes. The Auditorium Series embraces a wide variety of types and styles of ensemble, from string quartets to eight-voice a cappella choirs to ethnic improvisational ensembles. The same great ensembles that audiences from New York to Seattle flock to hear — the Beaux Arts Trio, Masters of Persian Music, Kronos Quartet, Chanticleer, eighth blackbird and the Chamber Orchestra Kremlin — have all graced the Auditorium Chamber Music Series.
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