Congratulations to the Balourdet String Quartet for being named Seattle Chamber Music Society’s first-ever string quartet in residence, from September 2025 to May 2026. Praised for its vibrant energy and masterly blend of technical precision and emotional depth, the Balourdet Quartet will be embedded in King County, Wash., during its nine-month residency, with a multitude of engagements across the county, including special community events, educational initiatives, and formal concerts.
The Balourdet Quartet — Angela Bae, violin; Justin DeFilippis, violin; Benjamin Zannoni, viola, and Russell Houston, cello — was most recently the Graduate Quartet in Residence at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University. In 2024, it received an Avery Fisher Career Grant and Chamber Music America’s Cleveland Quartet Award. “We’re honored to be the inaugural ensemble for Seattle Chamber Music Society’s new String Quartet in Residence program,” said Bae. “We look forward to an exciting 2025–26 season of performances and meaningful involvement in SCMS’s education and community outreach across King County.”
Congratulations to the Akropolis Reed Quintet for receiving the Paul Boylan Alumni Award from the University of Michigan! This award recognizes alumni who have graduated from the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance within the past 15 years who have made significant contributions to their artistic fields.
Akropolis also recently took home a 2025 GRAMMY® Award for Best Instrumental Composition for the track “Strands”with Pascal Le Boeuf and Christian Euman.
Congratulations to the Terra String Quartet for being named the Yale School of Music’s 2024-2025 fellowship quartet-in-residence! At Yale, the Terra String Quartet will enjoy the mentorship of YSM’s faculty quartet-in-residence, the Brentano String Quartet, and will in turn provide coaching to undergraduate chamber ensembles at the Department of Music. The Terras won the Christine and David Anderson Career Development Prize at the Banff International String Quartet Competition in 2022. In 2023, the group placed second at the Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition and third at the Osaka International Chamber Music Competition. The Terras recently performed four concerts at the Rockport Chamber Music Festival in Massachusetts and in August will teach at Suzuki on the Island, in Manhasset, N.Y., and spend a week in residence at the Avaloch Farm Music Institute in Boscawen, N.H.
Congratulations to Kodachrome Saxophone Quartet for receiving the Chamber Music America Classical Commissioning Grant! Grantee: Kodachrome (Phoenix, AZ)Composer: Julie ZhuInstrumentation: Soprano, alto, tenor, and baritone saxophonesThe new work for Kodachrome, which will feature video as well as live and fixed electronics, is inspired by the shape of the saxophone and continuing in the composer’s research of anthropomorphizing and sonifying elements of our natural world. In August 2023, Kodachrome was invited as an ensemble representing the U.S. to perform in the Chengdu International Sister City Music Festival held in Chengdu, China. In September 2023, Kodachrome performed and taught throughout the Midwest during their Double Gold Tour. Throughout the tour, Kodachrome performed at universities, colleges, soirees, junior high, and high schools in states including Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan. Kodachrome was also a featured ensemble on WFMT as a part of the Dame Myra Hess Concert Series held in Chicago, Illinois. Kodachrome has upcoming performances in Phoenix and several tours throughout the U.S. for the 2023/2024 season and is looking forward to sharing their music with many audiences.
Congratulations to the Pacifica Quartet, quartet-in-residence at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, for receiving a 2023 GRAMMY award nomination for their album Beethoven: Complete String Quartets – Volume 2. They have previously won two GRAMMYs in the Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance category: in 2021 for Contemporary Voices, and in 2008 with Elliott Carter: String Quartets Nos. 1 and 5.
Congratulations to the 2010 Fischoff Grand Prize Winner, Dover Quartet, for their second GRAMMY nomination for the 2020 Best Chamber Music / Small Ensemble Performance in recognition of it’s recording, The Schumann Quartets. They are currently in Residence at the Curtis Institute of Music as the Penelope P. Watkins Ensemble.
Congrats to the 2019 Fischoff Gold Medal Winner, Merz Trio, winners of the 2021 Naumburg Competition and the 2019 Concert Artists Guild Competition. Watch their video recording at Guarneri Hall during their 2019 Fischoff Winners Tour.
Tessa Lark | 2012 Prize Winner | Modêrtre
Tessa is a recipient of the Hunt family Award, the 2018 Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship, and a 2016 Avery Fisher Career Grant, and has also received a career grant from Leonore Annenberg Fellowship Fund for the Performing and Visual Arts. She was Silver Medalist in the 9th Quadrennial International Violin Competition of Indianapolis and winner of the 2012 Naumburg International Violin Competition. In 2020, she was nominated for a GRAMMY Award in the Best Classical Instrumental Solo category. 2023-24 season highlights include the world premiere of Carlos Izcaray’s Violin Concerto and concerts with the Stuttgarter Philharmoniker. More details can be found on her website.
Photo credit: Titilayo Ayangade
Tesla Quartet | 2012 Grand Prize Winner
Tesla Quartet won second prize at the 2016 Banff International String Quartet Competition. They also won the R.S. Williams Haydn Prize & the Canadian Commission Prize. More details can be found here. Bravo!
Boris Allakhverdyan | 2007 Grand Prize Winner | Prima Trio| www.primatrio.com
Congratulations to clarinetist Boris Allakhverdyan of the Prima Trio on his appointment as Principal Clarinet of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Learn more on his website.
Zorá String Quartet was be the String Quartet in Residence at Curtis Institute of Music 2016-2018. They were mentored by their renowned faculty including Shamuel Ashkensasi, Arnold Steinhardt, Michael Tree, and Peter Wiley. They also worked closely with Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Curtis 20/21 Contemporary Music Ensemble and Curtis’s Community Artists Program during their residency.
Anastasia Dedik, pianist of Prima Trio, released a new CD on September 16, 2015. Included on the CD are Pictures at an Exhibition by Mussorgsky and Concert Suite from the ballet The Nutcracker by Tchaikovsky.
UPDATE #4: Highlights of the 23-24 season include return appearances at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and People’s Symphony in New York as well as concerts in Seattle, Palm Beach, Ottawa, Toronto, Kalamazoo and a European tour of United Kingdom, Estonia and Germany. Calidore is set to release the complete Beethoven’sString Quartets for Signum Records in the 24/25 season. Volume I, containing the late quartets, was released in 2023 to great critical acclaim. UPDATE #3 (August 2016): Calidore has been selected as BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist. Over the next 2 seasons, they will produce several recordings for the BBC which will air internationally on BBC broadcasting. In addition, they will perform in many of the major venues & festivals in the UK. More info can be found here. UPDATE #2: Calidore has had a busy summer of 2015! They returned to Innsbrook Institute, debuted at East Neuk Festival in Scotland, performed at ChamberFest in Ottowa, and performed at Avery Fisher Hall in New York. Full details here. UPDATE #1: On March 31, 2015, Calidore String Quartet joined the roster Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center Two! This exciting new venture will begin in the 2016/2017 season.
Photo credit: Amanda Westcott
Julio Elizalde | New Trio | 2008 Grand Prize Winner | juliothepianist.com
Since 2014, Julio has served as the artistic director of the Olympic Music Festival near Seattle, Washington. In 2013, he served as a visiting professor of piano at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington and has given piano and chamber music masterclasses throughout the United States at major conservatories and universities. He has also appeared at various summer music festivals including Yellow Barn, Taos, Caramoor, Bowdoin, Kneisel Hall, and the Music Academy of the West. In 2012, Julio was the youngest juror ever selected at the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition.
A recipient of Chamber Music America’s prestigious Cleveland Quartet Award (2012), the Quartet’s playing has been described as “sonically delightful and expressively compelling” (The Strad). The ensemble has released eight albums, including its most recent release, Insects and Machines: Quartets of Vivian Fung (2023) which Strings Magazine praised as being “intensely dramatic throughout demonstrating both their advocacy of new music and their transcendent mastery.” The Quartet’s 2017 release, Unbound, was named by The New York Times as one of the year’s 25 Best Classical Recordings. The Quartet will release new recordings in 2024 and 2025, including Reinaldo Moya’s Pájaros Garabatos with soprano Maria Brea in 2024, works by Tina Davidson with pianist Natalie Zhu in 2024, and Richard Festinger’s Quartet No. 5 in 2025. In celebration of its Twentieth Anniversary in 2026-27, the Quartet has commissioned new works from composers Patrick Castillo, Brittany J. Green, Reinaldo Moya and Michelle Ross. The Quartet is the Professional Quartet-in-Residence at Temple University’s Center for Gifted Young Musicians and is also Director of the annual Saint Paul Chamber Music Institute. The Quartet is Artistic Director of Jasper Chamber Concerts, a series in Philadelphia dedicated to encouraging curiosity, community, and inclusivity through world-class chamber performances. With decades of experience in designing and presenting educational programs, the Quartet added its Community Connections program to the series in 2023, which brings performances to underserved schools and community centers throughout the greater Philadelphia metropolitan area. Additionally, the Quartet continues its residency at Arlington High School in New York State, now in its fourteenth year.
Andrew Wan | New Trio | 2008 Grand Prize Winner | www.andrewviolin.com
Andrew Wan was named the Musician-in-Residence at Cecilia Concerts. Additionally, his recording of Robert Schumann’s Sonatas for Piano and Violin with Canadian pianist Charles Richard-Hamelin nominated for a 2023 ADISQ Felix Award for Album Of the Year – Classical. Wan enjoys a deep collaborative relationship with Richard-Hamelin, silver medalist of the 17th Chopin International Piano Competition, with whom he has recorded all ten Beethoven sonatas for piano and violin. Their second album of Beethoven’s 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 5th Sonatas garnered the 2022 Juno award for Best Classical Recording for Small Ensemble. Their next recording featured the sonatas for violin and piano by Robert Schumann, released in the fall of 2022. He is equally at home as a soloist, chamber musician, and concertmaster. In August of 2008, he was named concertmaster of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra (MSO), making him one of the youngest leaders of a major symphony. His relationship with the orchestra began with performances of Elgar’s Violin Concerto, which were hailed as one of the top two musical moments of 2007 by La Presse. As soloist, he has appeared in the United States, China, New Zealand, Cuba, Argentina, Brazil, Switzerland, and Canada under conductors such as Jean-Claude Casadesus, Maxim Vengerov, Peter Oundjian, Jacques Lacombe, James DePreist, Marc Piollet and Michael Stern.
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