The Calidore String Quartet continues its complete cycle of the Beethoven string quartets throughout the 2024–25 season at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. After dazzling audiences with the early-period quartets in October, the Calidore will perform the middle-period quartets this winter and the late quartets in the spring. I sat down with the group to discuss their early days and their upcoming concerts. Edited excerpts of our conversation follow.
Tell us about how the Calidore String Quartet came to be.
Jeffrey Myers: When I first met Ryan, in high school, we were in a string quartet competition in Saint Paul, Minnesota. His quartet ended up stomping mine. They got the gold medal, and we were stuck with silver. Whether its sports or music, everything in the Midwest is very competitive.
We didn’t talk to each other at this first competition. At a second competition, however, neither of our quartets made the finals, so we let our guard down and became fast friends. That night, we were up until 1:00 watching very nerdy violin videos, and the following summer we ended up attending the Aspen Music Festival and School together.
Ryan Meehan: That summer at Aspen, Jeff told me about the Colburn School, which was quite young at the time, and that he would be attending there next year. So I looked into it, applied, and ended up going, and that’s where I met Jeremy and Estelle. Jeremy and I were, in fact, assigned to a class-credit string quartet together the very first semester.
Jeremy Berry: Jeff and Estelle had played in a quartet the year before. As it turned out, the school offered their quartet a concert for the following year in Santa Monica, but they had lost their other two members. Jeff quickly recruited Ryan; I was fortunate that my viola teacher at the time suggested they ask me. I think we were all waiting in line at the school cafeteria when they asked, and I was thrilled to join. We played the concert, and then we all wondered what was next.
We decided to do two competitions. We didn‘t get into the first one, but we were very fortunate to win the Fischoff competition. At that point we sat down, looked each other in the eye, and asked, “Are we actually going to do this?” We would have to go all in; a career as a string quartet is very hard to carve out. But we all agreed to see it through.
Estelle Choi: The shift from doing this for class credit to considering it seriously as a career path happened quite quickly. During our first few rehearsals, a shared mentality developed, where we really embraced our roles as ambassadors of the incredible string quartet repertoire. We had this feeling that there is so much to explore and that it is important to share this type of music with the world. I think the great friendship that the four of us have formed over the years is integral to our music making and to our artistic methods. We all have a similar work ethic, and that goes back to being in school together, having similar expectations and wanting to do our best at all times. Fourteen years in, our adventure remains full of self-discovery, and even a few surprises. We all constantly act as sounding boards for each other, lifting each other up, and helping each other grow—both individually and as a group.
You mentioned the Aspen Music Festival. Was your time there particularly formative?
Meehan: The Aspen Music Festival and School is very dear to my heart, and to Jeff’s as well. We went there many summers, and it was there that we attended a concert of the Takács Quartet playing a concert of all Brahms. We were on such a high after the concert; the energy and the sound that the quartet produced had reinvigorated and re-inspired us. Walking back to the dorms, Jeff and I talked about how cool it would be to do that as a profession, day in and day out—to practice and perform string quartets. I think that was the moment when the idea was incepted that we would like to play in a quartet together.
Myers: At the beginning of each summer, we would get these little vouchers for seats to specific concerts, and I would make sure to get my ticket for the Emerson String Quartet and whatever other quartet was coming through town. I got to see some of the most amazing concerts from the stages of Harris Hall and the 2,000-seat Aspen Music Festival tent. I remember one concert when the Emerson played Beethoven’s Opus 130 with the Grosse Fuge at the end; it was as if there was an entire symphony orchestra on stage, just shimmering with this amazing energy and playing this really powerful music. Once I saw that concert, I knew that’s what I wanted to do.
Your next concerts at CMS feature Beethoven’s “middle- period” quartets, starting with the Op. 59 set. What’s exciting about these as performers?
Berry: Compared to Beethoven’s early quartets, in which he expands on what previous composers had done, at this point you can tell he has absolutely no care for what anybody before him has ever written. He threw everything in the fireplace and started from scratch. He’s blowing the forms wide open, with longer movements and much greater harmonic risks. The music is also a lot harder to play. There were complaints about that in his lifetime. People were like, what the heck is this? I don’t want to play this. But for us it’s a fun challenge. Everyone gets their turn in the spotlight, and these are some of the most incredible works ever written, not only for string quartet, but in all of music.
Choi: The Op. 59 quartets demonstrate a sort of liberation of all the instruments. No one is always at the forefront, and no one is only in the background. There is a perpetual shift in our roles, and that in itself presents many challenges. They are incredibly technically demanding, and require a tremendous amount of focus, both physical and mental. The physicality of getting around the instruments and playing these intricate passages—it’s a different type of concentration. And for listeners, you have to be ready for quite a long program, but a very accessible program that really resonates with audiences. As players, we’ve got to have our electrolytes ready to go. With Op. 59, it seems like Beethoven decided that he will no longer be constrained by any limits, whether on the players or on the music itself.
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