VC LIVE | Music@Menlo Chamber Music Festival and Institute Presents Beethoven Quartet Cycle III

Tune in here on Friday, August 18th at 7:00 PM (ET) for a chamber music concert featuring the Calidore String Quartet performing Beethoven's string quartets

We're coming to you live from Music@Menlo, an internationally acclaimed chamber music festival and institute in the San Francisco Bay Area. Founded by David Finckel and Wu Han as a program of Menlo School, Music@Menlo features unique immersive programming, a roster of world-class artists, and a Chamber Music Institute for emerging and pre-professional musicians.

Intimate performance venues and signature offerings such as AudioNotes MP3s, Café Conversations, and the Encounter lecture series offer a wide range of opportunities for aficionados and newcomers of all ages to connect with chamber music in new and innovative ways.

Beethoven’s three Razumovsky quartets were composed for the Russian ambassador to Vienna. These works moved the genre to a new level, testing the virtuosity and stamina of any string quartet. The pieces were composed in the same heroic spirit as Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, and as a gesture to Andrey Razumovsky, who commissioned the works, Beethoven incorporated Russian-themed music into all three.

Program:

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770–1827)

String Quartet in F major, op. 59, no. 1, Razumovsky (1806)

String Quartet in E minor, op. 59, no. 2, Razumovsky (1806)

String Quartet in C major, op. 59, no. 3, Razumovsky (1806)

Recipient of the 2018 Avery Fisher Career Grant and the 2017 Lincoln Center Emerging Artist Award, VC Artist Calidore String Quartet first made international headlines as the winner of the $100,000 Grand Prize at the 2016 M-Prize International Chamber Music Competition. The quartet was the first and only North American ensemble to win the Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship, was a BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist, and is currently in residence with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.

As a passionate supporter of music education, the Calidore String Quartet is committed to mentoring and educating young musicians, students, and audiences. In 2021, the Calidore String Quartet joined the faculty of the University of Delaware School of Music and serve as directors of the newly established Graduate String Quartet Residency. Formerly, they served as artists-in-residence at the University of Toronto, the University of Michigan, and Stony Brook University.