Highlights of 2007

2007 was an exciting year for the Daedalus Quartet. It started off with a bang on January 17 with our Lincoln Center recital debut at Alice Tully Hall as part of our residency with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. You can listen to some sound clips from the concert and read the excellent review in the New York Times.

Another highlight of our residency with CMSLC was receiving the Martin Segal Award from Lincoln Center in honor of young artists who have made outstanding contributions to the Lincoln Center community. What an honor to be singled out by one of the world's preeminent arts organizations!

Chamber Music America awarded Daedalus the prestigious Guarneri String Quartet Award and a three year grant for a residency in public schools in Eastern Long Island, where Kyu, Min, and Raman grew up. (Jessica was given an honorary diploma from Bellport High School in March!)

Many of the world's leading young quartets came together on June 8, 2007 in Northborough, MA to witness the marriage of two quartets, the Daedalus and the Enso, or at least, two of their members. Our cellist Raman Ramakrishnan and Melissa Reardon (violist of the Enso Quartet) tied the knot in a beautiful wedding with our friends from the Enso, Jupiter, and Chiara quartets in attendance.

The summer of 2007 was our busiest yet with festivals in Spain, Alaska, Maine, Massachusetts, and Nebraska, as well as numerous performances around the New York area including festivals at Bard, Caramoor, Music Mountain, and Maverick. We had a chance to collaborate with some fantastic guest artists including pianists Tanya Bannister, Frederic Chiu, Todd Crow, Simone Dinnerstein, Piers Lane, and Awadagin Pratt, and clarinetists Alex Fiterstein and Todd Palmer. Two of our more unusual collaborations were with pipa player Wu Man at Chamber Music Northwest in Portland, OR and with jazz legend Paquito d'Rivera and flutist Marco Granados at the Caramoor Festival. (We told you we were busy!)

As the 2007-2008 school year began, we resumed our duties as Resident Quartet of Columbia University, and assumed our new post as Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Pennsylvania. At both institutions, we present concerts, lecture demonstrations, master classes, and composer readings. At Columbia, we served as the jury for the Jonathan Kramer Memorial Composition Prize and will present the winning composition by Carl Christian Bettendorf in our recital at Miller Theatre on February 8, 2008. In the spring of 2008, we will be teaching a Chamber Music Performance and Analysis class at U Penn as part of our residency there. In a weekly master class setting, we explore the various aspects of chamber music interpretation and performance with the talented musicians at U Penn.

Upcoming projects and tours

One of the projects we are most excited about for the coming year is performing and recording the complete Opus 20 quartets of Haydn. As Donald Tovey said, "With Op. 20 the historical development of Haydn's quartets reaches its goal; and further progress is not progress in any historical sense, but simply the difference between one masterpiece and the next." We couldn't agree more, and we offer listeners the chance to hear the infinite variety of Haydn's creative genius in these six quartets in one concert. We will also present the complete set over six lunchtime concerts in October 2008 at Columbia University, presented by Miller Theatre. We will be recording the quartets for BRIDGE Records in May 2008 with a release to coincide with Haydn's bicentenary in 2009.

Other highlights of the coming season are two extensive tours of Germany, Austria, and Belgium, and a collaboration with Michael Tree and Peter Wiley of the Guarneri Quartet for our Philadelphia Chamber Music Society debut.