Calidore String Quartet to present this year’s Beethoven string cycle

The internationally acclaimed Calidore String Quartet will present this season’s Slee/Beethoven String Quartet Cycle at UB, with the first two concerts set for Oct. 4 and Oct. 5 in Lippes Concert Hall in Slee Hall, North Campus.

The program for the Oct. 4 concert at 7:30 p.m. will feature Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 127; Quartet in F Major, Op.18, No. 1; and Quartet in C Major, Op. 59, No. 3.

For the Oct. 5 concert at 3 p.m., the musicians will perform Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 74 (“The Harp”); Quartet in G Major, Op. 18, No. 2; and Quartet in C-sharp minor, Op. 131.

UB is almost certainly the only place in the country — or the world, according to Philip Rehard, concert manager for the Department of Music — that presents the Beethoven string quartet cycle annually. The annual presentation of the cycle was established at UB during the 1950s by the estate of Frederick and Alice Slee.

UB’s presentation is also unique in that ensembles appearing in the series cannot dictate the order in which they present the individual quartets: The Slees’ bequest stipulates the order in which the quartets are to be performed, Rehard says.

This season marks the 64th consecutive presentation of the Slee/Beethoven String Quartet Cycle at UB.

The remaining concerts in the cycle will be performed on Feb. 15 and 16, and April 25 and 26. The quartet will lead a master class at 11 a.m. April 25 in Baird Recital Hall, 250 Baird Hall, North Campus.

The Calidore String Quartet — Jeffrey Myers, violin; Ryan Meehan, violin; Jeremy Berry, viola; and Estelle Choi, cello — has been praised by The New York Times for its “deep reserves of virtuosity and irrepressible dramatic instinct.”

Recipient of a 2018 Avery Fisher Career Grant and a 2017 Lincoln Center Award for Emerging Artists, the quartet first made international headlines as winner of the $100,000 Grand Prize of the 2016 M-Prize Chamber Arts Competition. The quartet was the first North American ensemble to win the Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship and a BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist award; it is currently in residence with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Bowers Program (formerly CMS Two).

This season, the Calidore String Quartet celebrates both its 10th anniversary and the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth by presenting cycles of his string quartets at the Colburn School in Los Angeles and the universities of Toronto and Delaware, in addition to UB. In Europe, the musicians will perform Beethoven quartets in Antwerp, Dresden and at the Rheingau Musik Festival.

In addition, the Calidore is premiering a new work by composer Anna Clyne inspired by Beethoven’s Grosse Fuge and commissioned by Music Accord in performances at Lincoln Center, Princeton University, Penn State, Caramoor, San Francisco Performances, and Boston’s Celebrity Series.

The ensemble’s name — an amalgamation of “California” and “doré,” French for “golden” — represents its reverence for the diversity of culture and the strong support it has received from its original home: Los Angeles, Calif., the “golden state.”

Tickets for the Calidore’s presentations of the Slee/Beethoven String Quartet Cycle are available through a variety of outlets at the following pricing structure:

UB faculty, staff, alumni, seniors and non-UB students

$10 plus $2.18 fee and minimal credit card charge at eventbrite.

$14 in person at the Center for the Arts (noon to 6 p.m., Tuesday through Friday)

$17 in person at the door (one hour before concert time)

General public

$15 plus $2.18 fee and minimal credit card charge at eventbrite.

$19 in person at the Center for the Arts (noon to 6 p.m., Tuesday through Friday)

$22 in person at the door (one hour before concert time)

UB students are admitted free with ID.

For a complete listing of all concerts being presented by the Department of Music, visit the department’s website.