March 5: Telegraph Quartet Presented by University of Iowa
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Telegraph Quartet Presented by University of Iowa
Performing the Music of Ludwig van Beethoven, Kenji Bunch, and Mieczysław Weinberg
Wednesday, March 5, 2025 at 7:30pm
Voxman Music Building | 93 East Burlington St. | Iowa City, IA
More information
“soulfulness, tonal beauty and intelligent attention to detail ... an incredibly valuable addition to the cultural landscape.”
– San Francisco Chronicle
Iowa City, IA – On Wednesday, March 5, 2025 at 7:30pm, the Telegraph Quartet (Eric Chin and Joseph Maile, violins; Pei-Ling Lin, viola; Jeremiah Shaw, cello), a group described by The Strad as having "precise tuning, textural variety and impassioned communication,” will be presented in concert by the University of Iowa at the Voxman Music Building at (93 East Burlington St.). The award-winning ensemble will perform a program featuring Kenji Bunch’s String Quartet No. 2 “Concussion Theory,” Ludwig van Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 10 in E-flat major, Op. 74 “Harp” and Mieczysław Weinberg's String Quartet No. 6 in E minor, Op. 35. This performance is free and open to the public and is the culmination of a three day residency with the University of Iowa Sting Quartet Residency Program which had been supported in part by the Linda and Rick Maxson Chamber Music Fund.
The Telegraph Quartet formed in 2013 with an equal passion for standard and contemporary chamber music repertoire. Described by the San Francisco Chronicle as “an incredibly valuable addition to the cultural landscape” and “powerfully adept… with a combination of brilliance and subtlety,” the Telegraph Quartet was awarded the prestigious 2016 Walter W. Naumburg Chamber Music Award and the Grand Prize at the 2014 Fischoff Chamber Music Competition.
Known for their technical prowess and appreciation for the history behind music, the Telegraph Quartet bring their musical synchronicity and nuanced performance style to a program of music that highlights three very distinct forms of struggle that range from that of self-contained individual adversity to national plights of natural disasters, as well as the uncertainty of global conflict.
Beethoven’s “Harp” quartet, composed during a French attack on Vienna, is actually one of his most melodious works, despite it being written during the composer’s 11-year-long struggle with hearing loss, which inevitably kept him from fully experiencing this work. During World War II Mieczysław Weinberg fled his homeland of Poland and having failed to convince his family to come with him, almost all of them would be murdered in the concentration camps. His String Quartet No. 6 contains an innocent mundanity that erupts throughout the work into desperation, sorrow, and tragic indignation as he dealt with the ramifications of his exile and learned to live warily in his newfound home of the Soviet Union. The work, which was banned in Stalin’s USSR and was never performed in Weinberg’s lifetime, is now being championed by the Telegraph Quartet.
Kenji Bunch’s String Quartet No. 2, Concussion Theory, explores many aspects of the historically unprecedented plight of [the 1930’s Dustbowl] and the highly unorthodox experiments the nation tried in order to address it.
“The first movement, No Man's Land, presents a dire scene of the parched, barren earth of the Great Plains, with a scorching sun and only a rustling of tumbleweed to interrupt the desolate stillness. Black Sunday recalls a battered, downtrodden community church gathering in 1935 on the day of one of the worst dust storm of that era blacked out an area spanning five states. The third movement, Concussion Theory, depicts the blazing fireworks of explosives fired into the heavens above, followed by A Gentle Rain, a fantasy of cathartic rainfall; a bittersweet, would-be outcome of this experiment that, alas, in reality never actually occurred.
The Telegraph Quartet’s latest album, 20th Century Vantage Points: Divergent Paths, was released in 2023 on Azica Records. The first in the Telegraph’s three-album series focused on string quartets of the first half of the 20th century, Divergent Paths explores the bewildering and unbridled creativity of the period through the music of Arnold Schoenberg and Maurice Ravel, whose music on this album weaves threads of great contrast and surprising similarity. The album has been met with critical acclaim, with The New York Times reporting, “[I]n the Schoenberg, they achieve something truly special, meticulously guiding its often wayward progress. At times Schoenberg makes the four strings sound almost orchestral, but the Telegraph players can also make his contrapuntal tangles radiantly clear. Every minute of their account sounds gripping and purposeful, which is one of the highest compliments you can pay the piece.”
More about Telegraph Quartet: The Quartet has performed in concert halls, music festivals, and academic institutions across the United States and abroad, including New York City’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, San Francisco’s Herbst Theatre, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music’s Chamber Masters Series, and at festivals including the Chautauqua Institute, Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival, and the Emilia Romagna Festival. The Quartet is currently the Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Michigan.
Notable collaborations include projects with pianists Leon Fleisher and Simone Dinnerstein; cellists Norman Fischer and Bonnie Hampton; violinist Ian Swensen; and the St. Lawrence Quartet and Henschel Quartett. A fervent champion of 20th- and 21st-century repertoire, the Telegraph Quartet has premiered works by Osvaldo Golijov, John Harbison, Robert Sirota, and Richard Festinger.
In August 2023, the Telegraph Quartet released its latest album Divergent Paths, the first in a series of recordings titled 20th Century Vantage Points, on Azica Records. This first volume features two works that (to the best of the Quartet’s knowledge) have never been recorded on the same album before: Maurice Ravel’s String Quartet in F Major and Arnold Schoenberg’s String Quartet No. 1 in D minor, Op. 7. Through this series, the Telegraph Quartet intends to explore string quartets of the 20th century – an era of music that the group has felt especially called to perform since its formation. The New York Times praised the Telegraph’s performance as “…full of elegance and pinpoint control…” Divergent Paths follows Into The Light (Centaur, 2018), an album highlighting a gripping set of works by Leon Kirchner, Anton Webern, and Benjamin Britten.
Beyond the concert stage, the Telegraph Quartet seeks to spread its music through education and audience engagement. The Quartet has given master classes at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music Collegiate and Pre-College Divisions, through the Morrison Artist Series at San Francisco State University, and abroad at the Taipei National University of the Arts, National Taiwan Normal University, and in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Telegraph has also served as artists-in-residence at the Interlochen Adult Chamber Music Camp, SoCal Chamber Music Workshop, and Crowden Music Center Chamber Music Workshop. In November 2020, the Telegraph Quartet launched ChamberFEAST!, a chamber music workshop in Taiwan. In fall 2020, Telegraph launched an online video project called TeleLab, in which the ensemble collectively breaks down the components of a movement from various works for quartet. In the summers of 2022 and 2024, the Telegraph Quartet traveled to Vienna to work with Schoenberg expert Henk Guittart in conjunction with the Arnold Schoenberg Center, researching all of Schoenberg's string quartets.
For more information, visit www.telegraphquartet.com.
For Calendar Editors:
Concert details:
Who: Telegraph Quartet
Presented by the University of Iowa
What: Music by Ludwig van Beethoven, Kenji Bunch, and Mieczysław Weinberg
When: Wednesday, March 5, 2025 at 7:30pm
Where: Voxman Music Building, 93 East Burlington St., Iowa City, IA 52240
Tickets and information: www.gpsg.uiowa.edu/event/147476/0
Description: The award-winning Telegraph Quartet, which the San Francisco Chronicle describes as having “soulfulness, tonal beauty and intelligent attention to detail” and being “an incredibly valuable addition to the cultural landscape,” is presented by the University of Iowa on Wednesday, March 5, 2025. The concert, which is free and open to the public, will feature Kenji Bunch’s String Quartet No. 2 “Concussion Theory,” Ludwig van Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 10 in E-flat major, Op. 74 “Harp” and Mieczysław Weinberg's String Quartet No. 6 in E minor, Op. 35. Through this performance, the Telegraph Quartet presents music that explores a wide range of bold emotions and experiences, inspired by dramatic events of individual, national and global scale.