Friday, March 9, 3 p.m.
Butterworth Center, 1105 Eighth Street, Moline IL
Saturday, March 10, 7:30 p.m.
First Presbyterian Church, 1702 Iowa Street, Davenport IA
Praised by the International Review of Music for their “superb capacity to find the inner heart of everything they play, regardless of era, style, or technical demand,” the gifted chamber musicians of the Tesla Quartet perform as the latest guests in Quad City Arts' Visiting Artist Series, demonstrating why The Strad lauded their “technically superb” artistry and the London Evening Standard raved over “a subtly coloured performannce that balanced confidently between intimacy and extroversion.”
With Edwin Kaplan on viola, Serafim Smigelskiy on cello, and both Michelle Lie and Ross Snyder on violin, the Tesla Quartet was formed at the Juilliard School in 2008 and quickly established itself as one of the most promising young ensembles in New York, winning Second Prize at the J.C. Arriaga Chamber Music Competition only a few months after its inception. From 2009 to 2012, the quartet held a fellowship as the Graduate String Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Colorado-Boulder, where they studied with the world-renowned Takács Quartet, and have also held fellowships at the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival and the Aspen Music Festival’s Center for Advanced Quartet Studies.
Having recently taken Second Prize as well as the Haydn Prize and Canadian Commission Prize at the 12th Banff International String Quartet Competition, the quartet has also garnered top citations at numerous other international competitions, including the Gold Medal at the 2012 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. The Tesla Quartet also holds a community residency in Hickory, North Carolina that includes performances and workshops at local colleges, universities, and in the public school system, and performs regularly worldwide, with recent international appearances including those in London, Vienna, Beijing, Shanghai, and Seoul.
The Tesla Quartet's free March 9 performance at Moline's Butterworth Center starts at 3 p.m., and the musicians' official public concert at Davenport's First Presbyterian Church starts at 7:30 p.m., with tickets $10-15. For more information on the group and the Visiting Artist series, call (309)793-1213 or visit QuadCityArts.com.
