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
Thomas Adès’s newest album, "The Twenty-Fifth Hour" is a fascinating exploration of time both real and envisioned. It opens with the Los Angeles-based Calder Quartet joined by the composer on his Piano Quintet...Download PDF | Full Article
While much of the U.S. orchestra world has gathered in Cleveland this week to fret about the future and listen to Richard Strauss at the annual League of American Orchestras conference, the Los Angeles Philharmonic is busily optimistic, espousing the next great thing on Grand Avenue. Thursday night at Walt Disney Concert Hall, the "Next on Grand" Festival got fully underway with the orchestra's final concerts of the season...[Photo credit: Lawrence K. Ho]Download PDF | Full Article
The Calder Quartet has a continuing association with British composer Thomas Adès, so while none of the pieces on this disc were commissioned for them, there could hardly be a better choice for this stimulating retrospective of the British composer’s quartet-based chamber music...
The Calder Quartet, joined by L.A. Phil cellist Robert deMaine, deliver a performance for the ages
Highly recommended.★★★★★Download PDF
..LA's Calder Quartet played a free show at the Brooklyn Central Library. The concert, which was held in the library's subterranean Dweck Center, drew a large crowd, obviously familiar with the Calder's reputation as one of this country's finest working quartets.Download PDF | Full Article
A composer doesn’t have to be young to portray the ephemeral as ecstatic, but it probably helps. That was one possible conclusion to be drawn from the Calder Quartet’s Friday concert at Jordan Hall, featuring three youthful works fueled by fluidity — and one midlife crisis tempestuously brooding on it.Download PDF | Full Article
Since its founding in the late 90s, the Calder String Quartet has developed a sterling reputation for its wide-ranging programming and championing of contemporary music. Friday night at Jordan Hall, in a concert presented by the Celebrity Series, the ensemble performed a customarily bracing program that paired quartets by Beethoven and Ravel with works by Andrew Norman and Thomas Adès.Download PDF | Full Article
...For Bulbrook and violist Moerschel, playing at Jordan Hall is a homecoming of sorts. The entire quartet lives in the Los Angeles area now, but both Bulbrook and Moerschel grew up near Boston — Moerschel’s father Joel recently retired after three decades with the BSO — and performed in youth and prep ensembles together. “It’s really special for us to play in Jordan,” Bulbrook says. “Jon and I started here, and played in lots of orchestra pre-college events at Jordan. When you’re a little kid practicing hard, you dream about these things.”Download PDF | Full Article
...On Feb. 22, the Calder Quartet will juxtapose Mr. Norman’s “Sabina” and Mr. Adès’s “Arcadiana” in a concert sponsored by Carnegie Hall at the Brooklyn Public Library’s Central Library.“Andrew really looks up to and respects Adès,” said a violinist for the Calder, Andrew Bulbrook, who recounted Mr. Norman’s excitement: “ ‘Oh, wow, I’m on a concert with the greatest string quartet composed in the last 50 years!’ ” ...Download PDF | Full Article
No longer is it too early to call: The next two years are going to be brilliant.Following Wednesday's performance by the Calder Quartet at the Transformer Station, it's safe to say Cleveland Museum of Art patrons have cause to rejoice in the residency keeping the group around the region through 2016...Download PDF | Full Article
...Sunday afternoon, the Calder Quartet, formed by students at USC, begins a two-year residency at the Broad Stage, also in Santa Monica. Unlike the Formalists and Lyris, which are mainly known locally, the Calder is a full-time ensemble, and its international prominence grows every year, as does its impressive mastery...Download PDF | Full Article