Beethoven: Quartet in F major for Strings, Op. 59, No. 1, “Razumovsky”
Ludwig van Beethoven: Quartet in F major for Strings, Op. 59, No. 1, “Razumovsky” (1806)
Allegro
Allegretto vivace e sempre scherzando
Adagio molto e mesto—Theme russe: Allegro
Recorded live in Alice Tully Hall on Tuesday, January 28, 2025.
Video produced by Ibis Productions.
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Calidore String Quartet
Ryan Meehan
Estelle Choi
The Calidore String Quartet has been praised by the New York Times for its “deep reserves of virtuosity and irrepressible dramatic instinct.” The Los Angeles Times described the quartet as “astonishing,” their playing “shockingly deep,” approaching “the kind of sublimity other quartets spend a lifetime searching” and praised its balance of “intellect and expression.” Recipient of a 2018 Avery Fisher Career Grant and a 2017 Lincoln Center Emerging Artist Award, the quartet first made international headlines as winner of the $100,000 Grand Prize of the 2016 M-Prize International Chamber Music Competition. The quartet was the first North American ensemble to win the Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship, was a BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist, and is currently a season artist at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.
In summer 2021, the Calidore made debuts at the Sarasota, La Jolla, and Saratoga Music Festivals as well as the Schubert Club of St. Paul, MN. Highlights of the 21-22 season include returns to Wigmore Hall, Alice Tully Hall, and the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society. The Calidore will make its debut at the Library of Congress, the 92nd Street Y, Harvard University, Penn State University, and internationally in The Hague and Antwerp. The ensemble will premiere a new work by composer Huw Watkins commissioned by Wigmore Hall and will collaborate with the Emerson Quartet and pianists Jeffrey Kahane, Henry Kramer, and Gabriela Fahnenstiel.
The Calidore String Quartet’s second album for Signum Records, entitled BABEL, was released in 2020 and features worksby Schumann, Shostakovich, and Caroline Shaw. The Strad selected the album as the “Editor’s Choice” and praised it as “breathtaking…a universally impressive disc.” The quartet’s other recording for Signum is 2018’s Resilience including quartets by Mendelssohn, Prokofiev, Janácek, and Golijov.
The Calidore has given world premieres of works by Caroline Shaw, Hannah Lash, and Mark-Anthony Turnage. Its collaborations with esteemed artists and ensembles include Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Marc-André Hamelin, Joshua Bell, David Shifrin, Inon Barnatan, Lawrence Power, Sharon Isbin, David Finckel, and Wu Han. An alum of CMS’s Bowers Program, the Calidore has collaborated and studied closely with the Emerson Quartet and Quatuor Ébène, and has also studied with Andre Roy, Arnold Steinhardt, Günter Pichler, Guillaume Sutre, Paul Coletti, and Ronald Leonard. In 2021 the Calidore joined the faculty of the University of Delaware School of Music and serve as directors of the newly established Graduate String Quartet Residency.
The Calidore String Quartet was founded at the Colburn School in Los Angeles in 2010. Within two years, the quartet won grand prizes in virtually all the major US chamber music competitions, including the Fischoff, Coleman, Chesapeake, and Yellow Springs competitions, and it captured top prizes at the 2012 ARD International Music Competition in Munich and the International Chamber Music Competition Hamburg. An amalgamation of “California” and “doré” (French for “golden”), the ensemble’s name represents its reverence for the diversity of culture and the strong support it received from its original home: Los Angeles, California, the “golden state.”
Violinist Ryan Meehan has been hailed for his “singing tone” (New York Times) and his “remarkably polished and sophisticated playing” (Chicago Tribune). As a member of the Calidore String Quartet he is a recipient of a BBC Music Magazine Award, Avery Fisher Career Grant, a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship,Lincoln Center Emerging Artist Award, BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist and is a member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. He also toured internationally alongside violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter as part of her Virtuosi ensemble. Ryan regularly performs in venues such as Carnegie Hall, Wigmore Hall, Lincoln Center, Berlin Konzerthaus, Concertgebouw Amsterdam and at festivals, including the BBC Proms, Verbier, Ravinia, Mostly Mozart, Music@Menlo, Rheingau and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. With the Calidore, he has released nine commercial recordings including a recent release of the late Beethoven String Quartets.
As a soloist, Ryan has garnered top prizes in competitions, including the Washington International Competition, ASTA National Solo Competition and NFAA Young Arts. He has performed as soloist with the Colburn Orchestra and the Bellingham Festival Orchestra and played recitals throughout the North America, South America, Asia and Europe. As a chamber musician, he won grand prize at the $100,000 M-Prize, Coleman, Chesapeake and St. Paul chamber music competitions, as well as prizes at the ARD Munich, Hamburg and Fischoff competitions. He has collaborated with such esteemed musicians as Anne-Sophie Mutter, Julia Fischer, Menahem Pressler, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Anthony McGill, Lawrence Power and the members of the Emerson and Ebène String Quartets.
Ryan serves on the faculty of the University of Delaware School of Music as Associate Professor of Violin and co-directs the UD Graduate Fellowship Quartet Program and Calidore String Quartet Seminar. He also served as the String Chamber Music Director at the University of Michigan School of Music, Theater and Dance and artist-in-residence at the University of Toronto and Stonybrook University. In response to the 2020 summer festival cancellations caused by the Covid-19 epidemic, Ryan co-founded the Virtuosi Virtual Summer Academy (VVSA), which connected a diverse group of young violinists and pianists with the world’s leading soloists, chamber and orchestral musicians. In the summer season, he serves on the faculty of Music@Menlo Chamber Music Institute and Center Stage Strings at the University of Michigan.
A dedicated teacher, Ryan’s violin students have won top prizes and awards in national and international violin competitions such as the Klein, Cooper, Sphinx, Concert Artist Guild Competitions (Grand Prize) and the Avery Fisher Career Grant. They have been invited to prestigious summer festivals such as the Verbier Festival Academy, Perlman Music Program and Music@Menlo, performed as soloist with numerous orchestras and were accepted to prestigious collegiate conservatory programs such as the Curtis Institute, Juilliard School, Colburn School and the Harvard/New England Conservatory dual degree program. His students perform professionally as soloists, chamber musicians and in orchestras across the world.
Ryan is a graduate of the Colburn School Conservatory of Music in Los Angeles and the Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía in Madrid. His teachers include Almita and Roland Vamos, Robert Lipsett, Arnold Steinhardt, Julia Fischer, Günther Pichler with significant influence from Ana Chumachenco. He plays a violin by Vincenzo Panormo c. 1775 and is sponsored generously by Thomastik-Infeld, Vienna.
Cellist Estelle Choi has been praised by the Los Angeles Times for “giving the impression that music and the room are a single living being.” She is a founding member of the Calidore String Quartet, which made international headlines when they won the Grand Prize of the 2016 M-Prize International Chamber Music Competition. The Calidore is an Avery Fisher Career Grant winner, BBC 3 New Generation Artist, recipient of the Lincoln Center Emerging Artist award and a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship, and alums of CMS’s Bowers Program. She serves on the faculty of the University of Delaware School of Music as Associate Professor of Violin and co-directs the UD Graduate Fellowship Quartet Program and Calidore String Quartet Seminar. She studied with John Kadz and went on to work with Aldo Parisot at the Yale School of Music and Ronald Leonard at the Colburn Conservatory.