Isidore String Quartet

Direct from winning the illustrious Banff International String Quartet Competition in September, The Juilliard-trained Isidore String Quartet has secured a reputation as a 'quartet to watch.' For their debut performances at Duke, they are exploring three composers' personal musical responses to moments of 'awakening' in their lives.

First up, a musical interpretation of awakening: the introduction and development of the string quartet form. There's no better piece to illustrate this than Haydn's trailblazing String Quartet No. 25, written in 1771 but packed full of compositional techniques still adopted by composers every day. The centerpiece of the Isidores' program is a quartet written by Billy Childs in 2012, tracking his emotional and physical journey in dealing with his wife's serious illness and subsequent recovery. You can see every stage of this journey brought to life in the evolution of the core melody. To represent awakenings in the latter stages of life, the Isidores bring their recital to a close with one of Beethoven's late-period quartets, in which he confronts the nature of mortality and shows gratitude for his life.

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Due to illness, the St. Lawrence String Quartet regretfully canceled its December 3 performance. The award-winning Isidore String Quartet was selected to appear instead.