Myra Presents: Dover Quartet

APRIL 5, 2020 | 2 PM | NORTH DAKOTA MUSEUM OF ART

Joel Link, violin
Bryan Lee, violin
Milena Pajaro-van de Stadt, viola
Camden Shaw, cello

PROGRAM
Zemlinsky: Quartet No. 1 in A major, Op. 4
David Bruce: New Work
Mendelssohn: Quartet in D major, Op. 44, No. 1

This is a return visit to the Museum by the Dover Quartet, young Americans who met at the Curtis Institute. After sweeping all prizes at the 2013 Banff String Quartet Competition, the Dover was named the Cleveland Quartet Award-winner, and honored with the coveted Avery Fisher Career Grant. The Dover has become one of the most in-demand ensembles in the world. The Quartet’s rise from an up-and-coming young ensemble to occupying a spot at the top of their field has been “practically meteoric” (Strings). With its burnished warmth, incisive rhythms, and natural phrasing, the Quartet’s distinctive sound has helped confirm its status as “the young American string quartet of the moment” (New Yorker). The Quartet serves as the quartet-in-residence for the Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University, Chamber Music Northwest, Artosphere (Walton Arts Center, Fayetteville, AR), the Amelia Island Chamber Music Festival (Florida), Peoples’ Symphony in New York, and was recently named the first-ever quartet-in-residence for the Kennedy Center. 

In the spring of 2016, the Dover Quartet was recognized with the Hunt Family Award, an inaugural Lincoln Center Emerging Artist Awards, and in past years has taken top prizes at the Fischoff and the Wigmore Hall International String Quartet Competitions.
All four Quartet members are consummate solo artists: first violinist Joel Link took first prize at the Menuhin Competition; violinist Bryan Lee and violist Milena Pajaro-van de Stadt have appeared as soloists with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Tokyo Philharmonic, respectively; and cellist Camden Shaw released a solo album debut on the Unipheye Music label. In 2018-19 the Dover Quartet performed more than a hundred concerts around North America. According to the Chicago Tribune, “The Dover players have it in them to become the next Guarneri String Quartet — they’re that good.”