...the sincerest form of flattery
| 1. | Introduction | 00:00:53 |
| 2. | Mozart: Quintet in C minor for Two Violins, Two Violas, and Cello, K. 406 | 00:25:03 |
| 3. | Mendelssohn: Quartet No. 2 in A minor for Strings, Op. 13 | 00:32:33 |
PROGRAM
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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) |
Quintet in C minor for Two Violins, Two Violas, and Cello, K. 406 (1787) Ani Kavafian, Violin; Alessio Bax, Piano |
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Felix Mendelssohn (1809–1847) |
Quartet No. 2 in A minor for Strings, Op. 13 (1827) Calidore String Quartet |
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Ani Kavafian
Alessio Bax
Calidore String Quartet
Violinist Ani Kavafian enjoys a prolific career as a soloist, chamber musician, and professor. She has performed with many of America’s leading orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and San Francisco Symphony. In the 2019-20 season, she continued her longtime association as an artist of the Chamber Music Society with appearances in New York and on tour. Last summer she participated in several music festivals, including the Heifetz International Institute and the Sarasota Chamber Music, Bridgehampton, Meadowmount, Norfolk, and Angel Fire festivals. She and her sister, violinist and violist Ida Kavafian, have performed with the symphonies of Detroit, Colorado, Tucson, San Antonio, and Cincinnati, and have recorded the music of Mozart and Sarasate on the Nonesuch label. She is a Full Professor at Yale University and has appeared at Carnegie’s Zankel Hall numerous times with colleagues and students from Yale. She has received an Avery Fisher Career Grant and the Young Concert Artists International Auditions award and has appeared at the White House on three occasions. Her recordings can be heard on the Nonesuch, RCA, Columbia, Arabesque, and Delos labels. Born in Istanbul of Armenian heritage, Kavafian studied violin in the US with Ara Zerounian and Mischa Mischakoff. She received her master’s degree from The Juilliard School under Ivan Galamian. She plays the 1736 Muir McKenzie Stradivarius violin.
Alessio Bax catapulted to prominence with First Prize wins at both the Leeds and Hamamatsu International Piano Competitions. He has appeared with more than 150 orchestras, including the London, Royal, and St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestras, the Boston, Dallas, and Sydney Symphonies, and the NHK Symphony in Japan, collaborating with such eminent conductors as Marin Alsop, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Sir Andrew Davis, Sir Simon Rattle, Yuri Temirkanov, and Jaap van Zweden. He released his 11th Signum Classics album, Italian Inspirations, whose program was also the vehicle for his solo recital debut at New York’s 92nd Street Y as well as on tour. He and his regular piano duo partner, Lucille Chung, have given recitals at Lincoln Center and were featured with the St. Louis Symphony and Stéphane Denève. This season he makes his debut with the Milwaukee Symphony, and will return for the fourth time for two recitals at the historic Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. Last summer he made return appearances at the Seattle Chamber Music Festival and at the Bravo! Vail Music Festival with the Dallas Symphony and Fabio Luisi conducting. At age 14, Bax graduated with top honors from the conservatory of Bari, his hometown in Italy, and after further studies in Europe, he moved to the United States in 1994. A Steinway artist, he lives in New York City with pianist Lucille Chung and their daughter, Mila. He is a former member of CMS’s Bowers Program and on the faculty at the New England Conservatory.
The Calidore String Quartet has been recognized for achieving an extraordinary cohesion of individual artistry and collective expression—as the Washington Post wrote, “four more individual musicians are unimaginable, yet these speak, breathe, think and feel as one.” Their artistry reflects a profound engagement with both the classical canon and the evolving language of 21st-century chamber music.
The Calidore has performed at many of the world’s greatest concert halls, including Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, and Wigmore Hall, and festivals such as the BBC Proms, Verbier, Ravinia, and Caramoor. Collaborators have included Anne-Sophie Mutter, Joshua Bell, Anthony McGill, Marc-André Hamelin, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, David Finckel and Wu Han, the Emerson String Quartet, and Quatuor Ébène, among others.
Dedicated advocates for today’s music, the Calidore has premiered works by Caroline Shaw, John Williams, Anna Clyne, and Gabriela Montero, to name a few. During the 2025–26 season, they gave the world premiere of a new quartet, Arietta by Mark-Anthony Turnage, at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts.
In 2026, the Calidore released an all-American album, American Tapestry on Signum Records, featuring music by Samuel Barber, Wynton Marsalis, Erich Korngold, and John Williams. In 2025, they unveiled a landmark box set of the complete Beethoven string quartets, recorded for Signum following their live cycle at CMS during the 2024–25 season.
Formed in 2010 at the Colburn School in Los Angeles, the Calidore has won top prizes at major US chamber music competitions, including the Fischoff, Coleman, Chesapeake, and Yellow Springs. In 2016, they won the Grand Prize of the inaugural M-Prize International Chamber Music Competition as well as the Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship. Additional honors include the Avery Fisher Career Grant, the Lincoln Center Emerging Artist Award, and selection as BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists. They are alums of CMS’s Bowers Program.
Currently the Distinguished String Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Delaware, the Calidore has also held residencies at the University of Toronto, University of Michigan, and Stony Brook University.