Reviews

Strings

The Calidore Quartet was fortunate to have made this recording with Judith Sherman, a Grammy Award–winning producer who has recorded the Cleveland, Kronos, and Alexander quartets, among many others.

The Strad

Peter Quantrill hears from the Calidore Quartet about how Beethoven involves intense preparation and a sense of ‘leaning into the weird’

Your Classical

Sometimes the best way to tell a story is to start at the end. That way your destination is clear. That’s what the Calidore String Quartet decided to do when recording all of Beethoven’s String Quartets during the pandemic and recently releasing their first 3-CD set, Beethoven: The Late Quartets.

Classical Music

BBC Music Magazine’s latest issue reviewed the Calidore Quartet’s Late Beethoven release, giving it the highest possible rating of five stars for both performance and recording quality.

“The New York- based Calidore Quartet gives meticulously detailed performances of Beethoven’s late string quartets, with playing of quite remarkable technical accomplishment. I’m note sure, for instance, that I’ve ever heard the tremendously challenging Op. 133 Fugue (the original finale of the Quartet Op. 130) done with greater precision and clarity, and it makes for quite overwhelming experience... The players have clearly thought long and hard about these masterpieces of the string quartet repertoire, and they have produced performances that can stand comparison with the best.”

Washington Classical Review

The Calidore String Quartet, since their remarkable Kennedy Center debut in 2018, has laid down a track record of sterling performances.

WETA

The pandemic reaffirmed our commitment to live performance by emphasizing that is an exchange of energy that is essential for music making. Furthermore, we continue to hold a profound sense of gratitude to inhabit the sacred space of performance with a live audience.

Los Angeles Times

The Calidore, now based in New York, just released a recording of Beethoven’s late string quartets on Signum Records. The world may not need another set of these monuments to chamber music, but they are boldly recorded here, played with remarkable depth, yet another example of astonishingly life-affirming music making.

Calgary Herald

It has now developed its own unique sound and personality. Different from other North American quartets, the Calidore String Quartet has a more intimate, less extroverted personality. While all members of the group are highly accomplished, this individual accomplishment is not foregrounded or flaunted. Rather, the emphasis in the playing is on a refined balance among the instruments, on warmth of tone, on gentleness, and unfailing poise.

Los Angeles Times

The essence of the Calidore is just how centered it is. It does not give the impression of risk-taking but risk-absorbing. The quartet’s cellist, Estelle Choi, anchors herself as though she has roots extending under the stage. Her tone is rich, deep and powerful, giving the impression that music and the room are a single living being. She is unflappable but not obvious. When Beethoven erupts, as he does in the Presto movement in the middle Opus 131, her cello mimics the absurdity of unexpected delight, the portents of a godlike laughter beyond our means of understanding.

Gramophone

The justly acclaimed Calidore Quartet returned to the Phillips Collection for the local premiere of Caroline Shaw’s Three Essays, co-commissioned by the Phillips. This three movement meditation on the variety of human communication held the audience rapt. The Essays were framed by a stylish late Haydn quartet and Schumann’s Third Quartet in a loving, emotionally cohesive performance.

The Violin Channel

The New York-based Calidore String Quartet has in recent years firmly established themselves as one of the most celebrated young chamber ensembles to emerge internationally – praised for their “confidence

Gramophone

The recorded sound is translucent and upfront but the individual players repeatedly find a sweetness of expression

NY Times

The Calidore players performed it with synergistic brilliance and ferocious commitment...

New York Times

The excellent Calidore String quartet…brought rich sound and articulate grace to the piece..

NY Times

In a scene crowded with excellent young ensembles, the Calidore String Quartet can assert itself with pride.

New York Classical Review

The Calidore String Quartet—Jeffrey Myers and Ryan Meehan, violins, Jeremy Berry, viola, and Estelle Choi, cello—demonstrated its splendidly matched tone, sounding like a single instrument instead of four.

LA Times

That is to say that the Calidores were remarkable for the precision of their expression, their understated but relentless intensity…In short, the Calidores balanced intellect and expression in such a way as to make them a pleasure to hear all afternoon. Keep your ears out for these young musicians.

Strings Magazine

2016 has been a rather remarkable year for the Calidore String Quartet. After being awarded the Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship

Carnegie Hall

The second half featured Felix Mendelssohn’s F minor Quartet, written in the composer’s grief for the death of his sister Fanny. The Calidore Quartet put their shoulders into the meaning of the composer’s psychological crisis, with the instruments crying, sobbing or else wandering numbly from key to key as if in shock. This was a powerful performance, with the players putting themselves deep into the psychology of the work.

San Jose Mercury News

But the Calidore String Quartet may prove the hottest of this year’s attractions…In their Bay Area debut on Friday’s program, it was easy to see what the fuss is about.

Cleveland Classical

From start to finish, violinists Jeffrey Myers and Ryan Meehan, violist Jeremy Berry, and cellist Estelle Choi proved themselves worthy of every accolade that has been bestowed upon them.

The Scotsman

This is an ensemble as capable of whipping up storms as enchanting us with breathless moments of utter magic

Super Conductor

The second half featured Felix Mendelssohn’s F minor Quartet, written in the composer’s grief for the death of his sister Fanny. The Calidore Quartet put their shoulders …

Ottawa Citizen

“…fiercely talented…” “…a harmonious meeting of young and gifted musical minds.”

Gramophone

Calidore players are the epitome of confidence and finesse.

Gramophone

The justly acclaimed Calidore Quartet returned to the Phillips Collection for the local premiere of Caroline Shaw’s Three Essays, co-commissioned by the Phillips. This three movement meditation on the variety of human communication held the audience rapt. The Essays were framed by a stylish late Haydn quartet and Schumann’s Third Quartet in a loving, emotionally cohesive performance.