Calder Quartet spotlights American compositions in Concert Series
Bow and body become one as four musicians stretch out the arc of each note. Then the thumping, unsteady rhythms of pizzicato mark a more familiar melody reminiscent of the Juba, a lively African folk dance. The Calder Quartet plays a piece by 20th-century composer Florence Price, just one way they merge traditional and experimental styles in their repertoire.
The quartet performed a selection of 20th-century American pieces on Friday in the Patil Theater as part of Harker’s Concert Series. Consisting of violinists Benjamin Jacobson and Tereza Stanislav, violist Jonathan Moerschel and cellist Eric Byers, the group showcased both famous and underrepresented pieces of American classical music.
Chemistry teacher and audience member Mala Raghavan appreciated the program’s accessibility and relevance.
“Artistic events like this are amazing because there’s nothing like listening to people playing music,” Raghavan said. “We are very lucky to have access to these events and get tickets to these concerts. It makes it easier for us and more accessible for more people to listen to music and appreciate it.”
Concertmaster and violinist Hanz Baek (11), who also plays in a string quartet at school, admired the group’s ability to keep time with one another.
“Something we struggle with in our quartet is anticipating when the first violinist slows down or speeds up,” Hanz said. “But in ‘Amazing Grace,’ there were a ton of moments where they all made the slightest slowdown or the slightest speed up, and they matched it perfectly every single time. It’s even more impressive because there’s many different time signatures in the piece, but they’re somehow still playing together.”
Other pieces the group performed included Price’s “String Quartet No. 2 in A Minor” and Samuel Barber’s “Adagio for Strings,” both from the 1930s, and they concluded the concert with Beethoven’s classic 19th-century “String Quartet No. 4.”
Aside from this traditional piece, the quartet’s main goal was to feature contemporary repertoire, which attendee Isabella Pop (10) appreciated.
“It’s refreshing to listen to this more modern genre of classical music,” Isabella said. “I don’t get a lot of exposure to the pieces of contemporary composers, so it was interesting to hear and learn more about some composers that I didn’t know much about.”
The Calder Quartet also held a masterclass with orchestra students earlier that afternoon, where they gave students a preview of the night’s concert and offered feedback on students’ current pieces. To make students’ overall playing more cohesive, the quartet encouraged the students to engage in active listening.
“They mentioned in the masterclass listening to each other and anticipating one another, and you could not only hear it, but you could also visually see it in the eye contact between the four players during their actual performance,” Hanz said. “Overall, they were very open in their teaching, and they sat next to us and had private sectionals.”
