The Isidore Quartet, recipient of a 2023 Avery Fisher Career Grant and winner of the 2022 Banff International String Quartet Competition, joins forces with saxophonist Steven Banks, a 2022 Avery Fisher Career Grant winner. Their program features Ravel’s String Quartet in F Major, Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 12, Op. 127 and Banks’s own Quintet for Saxophone and String Quartet.
PROGRAM
RAVEL: String Quartet in F Major
STEVEN BANKS: Reflections and Exaltations (Quintet for saxophone & string quartet)
Intermission
BEETHOVEN: String Quartet No. 12 in E-flat Major, Op. 127
ABOUT ISIDORE QUARTET
Winners of a 2023 Avery Fisher Career Grant, and the 14th Banff International String Quartet Competition in 2022, the New York City-based Isidore String Quartet was formed in 2019 with a vision to revisit, rediscover, and reinvigorate the repertory. The quartet is heavily influenced by the Juilliard String Quartet and the idea of ‘approaching the established as if it were brand new, and the new as if it were firmly established.’
The members of the quartet are violinists Adrian Steele and Phoenix Avalon, violist Devin Moore, and cellist Joshua McClendon. The four began as an ensemble at the Juilliard School, and following a break during the global pandemic reconvened at the Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival in the summer of 2021 under the tutelage of Joel Krosnick.
Their Banff triumph has brought extensive tours of North America and Europe, a two-year appointment as the Peak Fellowship Ensemble-in-Residence at Southern Methodist University in Dallas beginning in 2023-24, plus a two-week residency at Banff Centre including a professionally produced recording, along with extensive ongoing coaching, career guidance, and mentorship.
The Isidore Quartet has appeared on major series in major cities throughout the US and Canada, and has collaborated with a number of eminent performers including James Ehnes, Jeremy Denk, Shai Wosner, and Jon Nakamatsu. Their 23/24 season featured appearances in Berkeley, Boston, Washington DC, New York, Chicago, Baltimore, among many others; European highlights included Edinburgh, Brussels, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, and Hamburg.
Outside the concert hall the quartet has worked with PROJECT: MUSIC HEALS US providing encouragement, education, and healing to marginalized communities, including elderly, disabled, rehabilitating incarcerated and homeless populations, who otherwise have limited access to high-quality live music performance. They have also been the resident ensemble for the Contemporary Alexander School/Alexander Alliance International.
The name Isidore recognizes the ensemble’s musical connection to the Juilliard Quartet: one of that group’s early members was legendary violinist Isidore Cohen. Additionally, it acknowledges a shared affection for a certain libation – legend has it a Greek monk named Isidore concocted the first genuine vodka recipe for the Grand Duchy of Moscow!
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