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2018-2019 Season

Telegraph Quartet with James Austin Smith

Telegraph Quartet with James Austin Smith

Violins, viola, cello, oboe

Thursday, September 27, 2018
7:30 PM
The Rockefeller University
Caspary Auditorium
1230 York Avenue at East 66th St.
New York City

View Program


The Telegraph Quartet (Eric Chin and Joseph Maile, violins; Pei-Ling Lin, viola; Jeremiah Shaw, cello) formed in 2013 with an equal passion for standard and contemporary chamber music repertoire. Described by the San Francisco Chronicle as “…an incredibly valuable addition to the cultural landscape” and “powerfully adept… with a combination of brilliance and subtlety,” the Telegraph 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 New York City’s Carnegie Hall, San Francisco’s Herbst Theatre, and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music’s Chamber Masters Series as well as at festivals including the Chautauqua Institute, Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival, and the Emilia Romagna Festival. They have collaborated with cellists Norman Fischer and Bonnie Hampton; violinist Ian Swensen; pianist Simone Dinnerstein; and the Henschel Quartett. A fervent champion of 20th- and 21st-century repertoire, the Telegraph Quartet has premiered works by John Harbison, Robert Sirota, and Richard Festinger. In 2018 the Quartet will release its debut album, Into the Light, featuring works by Anton Webern, Benjamin Britten, and Leon Kirchner on the Centaur label.

Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, the Quartet is currently on the chamber music faculty at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music as their Quartet-in-Residence and has given master classes at the SFCM Collegiate and Pre-College Divisions, through the Morrison Artist Series at San Francisco State University, and abroad at the Taipei National University of the Arts and National Taiwan Normal University.

James Austin Smith performs equal parts new and old music across the United States and around the world. Mr. Smith is an artist of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), the Talea Ensemble, and the Poulenc Trio as well as co-Artistic Director of Decoda, the Affiliate Ensemble of Carnegie Hall. Mr. Smith’s festival appearances include Marlboro, Lucerne, Chamber Music Northwest, Schleswig-Holstein, Stellenbosch, Bay Chamber Concerts, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, and Spoleto USA.

Mr. Smith received his Master of Music degree in 2008 from the Yale School of Music and graduated in 2005 with Bachelor of Arts (Political Science) and Bachelor of Music degrees from Northwestern University. He spent a year as a Fulbright Scholar in Leipzig, Germany at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater “Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy” and is an alumnus of Ensemble Connect, a collaboration of Carnegie Hall, The Juilliard School, the Weill Music Institute, and the New York City Department of Education. He is a member of the faculties of Stony Brook University, the Manhattan School of Music, and Purchase College and is co-Artistic Director of Tertulia, a chamber music series that takes place in restaurants in New York and San Francisco.


Check out more on the artists –

Telegraph Quartet Official Website »

James Austin Smith Official Website »