Eli and Edythe Broad Stage in Santa Monica presents Artists-in-Residence, Calder Quartet, who will continue their three-part concert series on April 9 and May 14. This inventive and passionate quartet explores the profound beauty of Beethoven’s String Quartets paired with classical and contemporary works. The new works are all commissioned for this series, inspired by the Op. 59 quartets and themes of patronage in the past and in the present.
The April 9 program will feature a new commission from contemporary composer, Andrew McIntosh. He said of the new piece; “While writing wrestle, stain, whistle, pound I read an essay by American poet Mary Oliver, titled Of Power and Time. Oliver’s essay is about concentration and creative work and seemed particularly relevant at the time, so the name of the quartet is a reference to the essay.
“During the process of writing this piece a great deal of musical material was generated in sketches. The challenge then became how to narrow that material down into concentrated and focused ideas, which I rethought, reorganized, re-orchestrated, and rewrote many times until it finally felt organic, clear, and distilled. I also immersed myself in studying Beethoven’s second Razumovsky quartet (Op. 59/2) in preparation for writing wrestle, stain, whistle, pound. I am not sure how directly it influenced the work, but it served as a subconscious model and is related harmonically. I suspect there are subtle shadows of gestures from the Beethoven that appear in my quartet if you look for them. I am incredibly grateful to the Calder Quartet and Justus and Elizabeth Schlichting for their generous commission of this work.”
The Calder Quartet was founded in 1998 at the Thornton School of Music at the University of Southern California. The members are Benjamin Jacobson (violin), Andrew Bulbrook (violin), Jonathan Moerschel (Viola) and Eric Byers (cello.)
The Calder Quartet performs a broad range of repertoire at an exceptional level, always striving to channel and fulfill the composer’s vision. Already the choice of many leading composers to perform their works, the group’s distinctive approach is exemplified by a musical curiosity brought to everything they perform.
Winners of the prestigious 2014 Avery Fisher Career Grant, Calder Quartet are widely known for the discovery, commissioning, recording and mentoring of some of today’s best emerging composers (over 25 commissioned works to date). The group continues to work and collaborate with artists across musical genres, spanning the ranges of the classical and contemporary music world, as well as rock and film/tv soundtracks, and in venues ranging from museums to Carnegie and the Hollywood Bowl. Inspired by innovative American artist Alexander Calder, the Calder Quartet’s desire to bring immediacy and context to the works they perform creates an artfully crafted musical experience.
The New Yorker said, “[The Calder Quartet’s] performances glow with Old World elegance, and with the constant sense of structure that the great European groups maintained; the precise intonation that modernist composers demand is delivered with sleek expressive intensity and euphonious tonal blend.”
Tickets are on sale at online at www.thebroadstage.com and by calling 310.434.3200. The Calder Quartet Residency at The Broad Stage has been made possible in part through a generous grant from the Colburn Foundation.
Program (April 9)
Beethoven: String Quartet No. 2, Op. 18/2
Andrew McIntosh: wrestle, stain, whistle, pound
Beethoven: String Quartet No. 8, Op. 59/2
Program (May 14)
Beethoven: String Quartet No. 5, Op. 18/5
Ted Hearne: Commission
Beethoven: String Quartet No. 9, Op. 59/3
Recent and upcoming highlights for the Calder Quartet include Lincoln Center, Metropolitan Museum of Art, multiple performances at Wigmore Hall, Barbican, Salzburg Festival, Donaueschingen Festival, Frankfurt Alte Oper, Tonhalle Zurich, IRCAM Paris, Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie, Centro Nacional de Difusión Musical Madrid, a residency at the Perth International Arts Festival and returns to Los Angeles’ Disney Hall and the Ojai Music Festival on a program curated by Peter Sellars. Their long list of collaborators include the Cleveland Orchestra, LA Philharmonic, Thomas Adès, Peter Eötvös, Barbara Hannigan, Audrey Luna, Johannes Moser, Joshua Bell, Edgar Meyer and Danielle DeNiese.
Calder Quartet
The Eli & Edythe Broad Stage
1310 11th St. Santa Monica CA 90401. Limited free parking is available.
Sunday, April 9 at 4 p.m.
Sunday, May 14 at 4 p.m.
Tickets start at $36. Prices subject to change.
Online: www.thebroadstage.com
Phone: Patron Services at 310.434.3200
