Movie Night with Telegraph Quartet

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Acclaimed Telegraph Quartet, now in residency at the School of Music, Theatre & Dance, performs a recital hosted by the Departments of Chamber Music and Strings.

The Telegraph Quartet invites you to a chilling night of terror and passion featuring the Austro-German expressionist works of composer Alban Berg and director Robert Weine. First we’ll be showing the German silent film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari – one of the original silent horror films that explores the dark corners of the psyche through the story of a carnival hypnotist by day who uses his somnambulist partner to commit murders by night! The work is underscored by the incredible string quartet music of composer and pianist STEPHEN PRUTSMAN, evoking the psychological terror of these twisted visuals through the language of 12-tone technique and aesthetic of the 2nd Viennese School. Post-intermission we’ll move on to the original music of that very school, into the romantically tortured mind of composer ALBAN BERG and his Lyric Suite – a latent opera on its surface, but actually a secret letter of unrequited love to Hannah Fuchs-Robettin, Alban Berg’s self-proclaimed soulmate. Come join us for this gaze into the dark corners of the human psyche and THERE WILL BE POPCORN!

ABOUT TELEGRAPH QUARTET

Erin Chin & Joseph Maile, violins
Pei-Ling Lin, viola
Jeremiah Shaw, cello

The TELEGRAPH QUARTET 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 is currently the Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Michigan.

The Quartet has performed in 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, Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival, and the Emilia Romagna Festival. They have collaborated with pianists Leon Fleisher and Simone Dinnerstein; cellists Norman Fischer and Bonnie Hampton; violinist Ian Swensen; and the St. Lawrence Quartet and Henschel Quartett. A fervent champion of 20th- and 21st-century repertoire, the Telegraph Quartet has premiered works by Osvaldo Golijov, John Harbison, Robert Sirota, and Richard Festinger.

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. Divergent Paths, featuring Ravel’s String Quartet in F Major and Schoenberg’s String Quartet No. 1 in D minor, Op. 7, follows Into The Light (Centaur, 2018), an album highlighting a gripping set of works by Leon Kirchner, Anton Webern, and Benjamin Britten.

The Telegraph Quartet Begins Three-Year Residency at SMTD