June Concert Series: Isidore String Quartet
Melissa Dvozenja-Thomas, Executive Director, Arts Mid-Hudson
Summers in the Hudson Valley bring incredible fairs, festivals, and concerts. Each June, the Hudson Valley Chamber Music Circle (HVCMC) presents a series of concerts held on Saturday evenings in Bard’s lovely and acoustically exceptional Olin Hall with internationally acclaimed musicians. On June 15 at 7:00 p.m., the highly praised Isidore String Quartet returns to HVCMC for the second consecutive year with a program that includes In Memory by Grammy Award- winning composer Joan Tower, written in honor of the late Margaret Creal Shafer (Artistic Director HVCMC 1977–2000), alongside works by Haydn and Beethoven.
The Isidore String Quartet members include violinists Adrian Steele and Phoenix Avalon, violist Devin Moore, and cellist Joshua McClendon. Steele studied under the tutelage of Laurie Smukler, and has attended the Kneisel, Aspen, and Bowdoin festivals, where he garnered a passion for chamber music. Avalon worked under the tutelage of Itzhak Perlman and Li Lin as a proud recipient of the Kovner Fellowship. Moore has performed in prestigious venues worldwide, including the Kennedy Center, Spivey Hall, Carnegie Hall, Maison Symphonique, Elbphilharmonie, Concertgebouw, and the Esterhazy Palace. McClendon began his cello studies at the age of eight under the tutelage of cellist Paul Wingert. The four started as an ensemble at the Juilliard School, and are the winners of a 2023 Avery Fisher Career Grant and the 14th Banff International String Quartet Competition in 2022.
If you are unfamiliar with composer Joan Tower, she was the first woman to receive the Grawemeyer Award for music in 1990 as well as the winner of three Grammys. Tower started as a pianist and it wasn’t until she was given an assignment to write a piece of music in undergrad that she had ever considered composing. “I have always been very curious about music,” Tower stated. “When I started writing music it was a disaster and then I had a shift where I focused more of my energy into composing as it challenged me differently, there were so many things to consider, it was intricate.”
In Memory will take the audience through all the emotions of grief. Tower created this work in 2001 after losing her mentor and friend Margaret Creal Shafer, who would often listen to Tower after a long day and provide guidance or act as a sounding board. If you have ever lost someone close to you, I am sure you can attest to the conflicting emotions that follow their absence. This piece will bring you through the moments of love and the tortured moments of loss.
Tower’s piece is bookended by Joseph Haydn’s String Quartet in C Major, Op. 20, No. 2, and Ludwig van Beethoven’s String Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 127. A perfect set for the Isidore String Quartet. They are known for their approach to different works. Their motto, “Treat new music like it is old and old music like it is new,” allows a new perspective to the work of masters.
There is one final concert in the June series after the Isidore String Quartet Concert featuring the prize-winning Balourdet Quartet on June 22. They recently became the recipient of Chamber Music America’s 2024 Cleveland Quartet Award, and will perform works from the chamber music canon by Mozart and Beethoven, along with Karim Al-Zand’s Strange Machines, a work they commissioned with a Chamber Music America grant in 2022 and premiered in London’s Wigmore Hall during the 2022-23 season. No matter the concert you attend, you’re sure to leave with an experience like no other to start your summer.
If you go:
June Concert Series: Isidore String Quartet
Bard College, Olin Hall, 35 Henderson Circle Drive, Red Hook, NY 12571
Date: June 15, 2024
Time: 7:00 p.m.
Contact: 845-758-7900, fishercenter@bard.edu
fishercenter.bard.edu/events/hvcmc24-2
