Telegraph Quartet set to perform on February 7
Friday, February 7, 2025Saint Meinrad Archabbey Cultural Events will present a concert by the Telegraph Quartet on February 7, 2025, at 7:30 p.m. Central Time in the Archabbey Church.
Saint Meinrad Archabbey Cultural Events will present a concert by the Telegraph Quartet on February 7, 2025, at 7:30 p.m. Central Time in the Archabbey Church.
The concert will be performed by Eric Chin and Joseph Maile on violin, Pei-Ling Lin on viola, and Jeremiah Shaw on cello. The program will feature pieces by composers Rebecca Clarke, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Bedřich Smetana.
The idea that a composer might never actually hear their own creation might at first seem like an oxymoron: unheard music. The Telegraph Quartet explores just that—compositions that may never have been fully experienced by the creators themselves.
Rebecca Clarke, a truly accomplished composer of the 20th century, composed her Poem for String Quartet but would never see the work published and disseminated in her lifetime. Beethoven had begun losing his hearing by his late 20s and by the time the good-natured Harp Quartet was composed, its cheery quality belied the composer’s 11-year-long struggle with hearing loss that would have kept him from fully experiencing this work. Similarly, Smetana would not have been able to even hear his own first string quartet at all, as he fell victim to severe hearing loss in 1874. His own autobiographical string quartet, for all its joy and enthusiasm, ends with a piercing e-string note that denotes the onset of that hearing loss two years prior to the quartet’s creation.
Now celebrating its 12th season together, the Telegraph Quartet formed in 2013 with an equal passion for the standard chamber music repertoire and contemporary, non-standard works. The Quartet was awarded the prestigious 2016 Walter W. Naumburg Chamber Music Award and the Grand Prize at the 2014 Fischoff Chamber Music Competition.
The Quartet has performed in concert halls, music festivals, and academic institutions across the United States and abroad, including New York City’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, San Francisco’s Herbst Theatre, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music’s Chamber Masters Series, and at festivals including the Chautauqua Institute, Interlochen Arts Festival, Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival, and the Emilia Romagna Festival. The Quartet is currently the Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Michigan.
In August 2023, the Telegraph Quartet released its latest album Divergent Paths, the first in a series of recordings titled 20th Century Vantage Points, on Azica Records. Through this series, the Telegraph Quartet intends to explore string quartets of the 20th century—an era of music the group has felt especially called to perform.
Beyond the concert stage, the Telegraph Quartet seeks to spread its music through education and audience engagement. They have given master classes in the Unites States and abroad. The Quartet has also served as artists-in-residence at the Interlochen Adult Chamber Music Camp, SoCal Chamber Music Workshop, and Crowden Music Center Chamber Music Workshop. In November 2020, the Telegraph Quartet launched ChamberFEAST!, a chamber music workshop in Taiwan. In fall 2020, Telegraph launched an online video project called TeleLab, in which the ensemble collectively breaks down the components of a movement from various works for quartet.
The concert is free, open to the public, and no registration is required. Parking is available in the Guest House and student parking lots. For more information, contact Krista Hall during business hours at 812-357-6501. For updates on the day of the performance, call 812-357-6611.