...The players relied on what they are particularly good at, namely, producing a beautifully rounded and unified sound, as well as showing a generous sense of musical camaraderie, as the quartet did — slyly, it so happened — for the opening of Opus 18, No. 1.What at first seemed a fine demonstration of Classical period balance, grace and good sense was only a setup. When the players then ripped into the development section with an infectious enthusiasm, they made visceral Beethoven’s revolutionary spirit...Download PDF | Full Article
...In the “Kongsgaard Variations” (built around the gorgeous “Arietta” theme from Beethoven’s last piano sonata, Op. 111), Hillborg channeled Beethoven’s dramatic lyricism in a free-flowing meta style that slipped effortlessly from Renaissance dances to the ultramodern coda that closed the work. The Calder Quartet turned in an expressive and deeply felt performance, as they did with the seven dark, meditative movements of Hillborg’s 2007 “Heisenberg Miniatures.”...Download PDF | Full Article
★★★★½Cutting edge Beethoven from La La Land foursome.Utzon Room, Sydney Opera HouseFebruary 26, 2017Sydney’s crème de la crème Utzon Series chamber music season got under way in stylish fashion with a beautifully structured and compelling performance of Beethoven’s own favourite of his 16 quartets, the C sharp minor Op. 131, by the American Calder Quartet...Download PDF | Full Article
Beethoven and Beyond5 starsCalder QuartetWinthrop HallREVIEW WILLIAM YEOMANThis group of three concerts, performed across as many days from Friday through to Sunday as part of PIAF’s Chamber Music Series curated by Yarmila Alfonzetti, showcased the talents of one of today’s leading string quartets, LA-based Calder Quartet. It also showcased the genius of Beethoven at its most refined and intimate, alongside the unique, vital voices of three leading contemporary composers...Download PDF | Full Article
...This Saturday, lovers of modern classical music get their own endurance event at the Met Cloisters, when the Calder Quartet offers a rare performance of Morton Feldman’s 1983 piece “String Quartet No. 2.” With a duration that can stretch beyond six hours, the 124-page, fully notated score is a puzzle, a brain teaser, a feat of strength and an endurance test—of the physical and mental limits of its players and its audience...Download PDF | Full Article
A funny notion, selecting a single, favorite page from Morton Feldman’s String Quartet No. 2. After all, this 1983 opus of titanic duration and fearsome reputation can last anywhere from under four hours to over six, depending on repeats and tempo. Requiring unyielding concentration and unceasing precision to fulfill the composer’s demands, it pushes the bounds of what is physically possible...Download PDF | Full Article
Wigmore Hall, LondonPeter Eötvös’s new Sirens Cycle blends Kafka, Joyce and Homer in strikingly different sections. Piia Komsi met its challenges with operatic brilliance...Download PDF | Full Article
...Adès was at the center of a chamber concert the following evening at the Mozarteum featuring the Calder Quartet. The composer joined them for his Piano Quintet, creating floating, impressionistic atmospheres that are juxtaposed with the strings in Ivesian fashion. His grotesque harmonies and melodies underscore the sensation of seeing the music through a prism, as the musicologist Richard Taruskin noted early on, evoking surrealism. The Calder players were so homogeneous in texture and rhythm that they at one point resembled a glass harmonica.They were just as outstanding in the string quartet Arcadiana, which features a macabre tango, a heartbreaking allusion to Elgar’s Enigma Variations, and a final movement, “Lethe” (the river of forgetfulness in Hades), in which the melodies lose their way and droop into nothing. Adès’ music won powerful context alongside Kurtàg’s Moments Musicaux, with its intricacies and wide-ranging references, and Schubert’s String Quartet No.14 (“Death and the Maiden”), in which the composer grapples with death and his lost youth.Full Article
The Calder Quartet's concert sponsored by the Cleveland Museum of Art on Thursday evening, March 31 was an extraordinary event both musically and in its setting...Full Article
The Calder Quartet concluded its two-year, four-concert residency at Transformer Station Thursday with a short but impressive program presenting two works requiring intense concentration on the parts of both performers and listeners...Full Article
Director Oliver Stone, with whom Armstrong worked on the upcoming Snowden, as well as three past projects, including World Trade Center and the docu-series, The Untold History Of The United States, presented the award, along with ASCAP president Paul Williams. The Calder Quartet performed a selection of Armstrong’s music, while Lindsay Pearce sang “This Love,” written by Armstrong for Cruel Intentions. “Your music glows with a power that’s beyond words,” Stone said of Armstrong, but not before busting on how quiet the Scottish composer is.Full Article
The Armstrong tribute, which included poignant interpretations of Armstrong’s music for “Gatsby” and “Love Actually” by the Calder Quartet, was preceded by an equally moving paean to James Horner, the Oscar-winning composer behind such films as “Titanic” and “Braveheart” who died last June.Full Article
Few string quartets can command the stage like the Calder Quartet. At the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater on Sunday afternoon, the California-based ensemble proved why it remains a must-hear on the concert circuit.Download PDF | Full Article
A baroque encounter and a string quartet transport Anthony Uzarowski as he dips a toe into the world of classical musicFull Article
Near the end of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Green Umbrella program Tuesday night, three local string quartets were arrayed on a darkened Walt Disney Concert Hall stage for George Brecht's String Quartet...photo credit: J ClendeninDownload PDF | Full Article
After an all-Mozart CD with pianist Anne-Marie McDer- mott, the hip, young, and outstanding Calder Quartet (violinists Benjamin Jacobson and Andrew Bulbrook, violist Jonathan Moerschel, and cellist Eric Byers) released an all Thomas Adès chamber-music CD, including the British composer’s first-ever work for string quartet, Arcadiana...Download PDF
It doesn’t matter how firmly I get the notion of Thomas Adès’ creative genius fixed in my mind — the beauty, ingenuity and expressive richness of his music always catches me by surprise. The latest example is this magnificent compilation of his chamber music by the Calder Quartet, with the composer joining in at the piano for a performance of his Piano Quintet...Download PDF | Full Article
...All six of Bartók's string quartets were performed over three programs, a first in the festival's history. The superb Calder Quartet, in a memorable Ojai debut, captured the composer's developing "night music" style in the Fourth, the Bulgarian folk-rhythms in the Fifth's scherzo and trio, and the slight bitterness in the melancholy Sixth's “Marcia” and “Burletta.”...Download PDF