Palladium concert favorites – Calidore String Quartet – wins $100,000 chamber music prize

Califore quartet continues to establish themselves as the hottest young ensemble in chamber music. Another major award, this one with a $100,000 prize from the University of Michigan, drew the attention of the New York Times and the TB Times. It’s quite an accomplishment for a quartet just a few years out of music school.

Calidore, which features St. Petersburg’s own Ryan Meehan, has played three concerts at the Palladium in recent years. The most recent last April. I’ll let the New York Times tell you the rest:

By MICHAEL COOPER/May 20, 2016/NY Times

A major new chamber music award, the $100,000 M-Prize from the University of Michigan’s School of Music, Theater & Dance, was given for the first time on Thursday evening to the Calidore String Quartet.

Calidore String Quartet

The prize was the idea of Aaron Dworkin, the school’s new dean, who sees it as a way to focus attention on chamber music, an increasingly important part of the musical landscape. The Calidore quartet’s award was announced as part of a performance that was broadcast on Detroit Public Television, after two days of final competition concerts in Ann Arbor, Mich.

Mr. Dworkin, who founded the Sphinx Organization, which promotes diversity in classical music, said in a statement that the group was “a perfect example of the extraordinary talent that we seek to showcase with this competition.” The quartet, which formed in 2010 at the Colburn School of Music, is in residence at Stony Brook University on Long Island. It will join the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center Two roster, which presents young artists on the brink of big careers, this year. The group features Jeffrey Myers and Ryan Meehan on violin, Jeremy Berry on viola and Estelle Choi on cello.

The Calidore won the grand prize of the new competition, which drew 172 applications from 13 countries. The entrants were whittled down to a list of 29 ensembles that participated in the semifinal and final rounds, and were judged by a panel of 15. In all, some $200,000 was awarded to ensembles in a variety of categories, including some for musicians under 18.

Yarn/Wire, a quartet of two percussionists and two pianists, won a $20,000 first prize in the competition’s open category, which recognizes atypical ensembles, and the Kenari Quartet won the $20,000 first prize for winds. As part of the award, the Calidore quartet will also be presented by the University Musical Society in Ann Arbor next season.