Dover Quartet: Triumphant Return & Range
[SOLD OUT] 2013 PROTÉGÉ ENSEMBLE RETURNS WITH A JEROD IMPICHCHAACHAAHA’ TATE COMMISSION
Since their summer at CMNW as our 2013 Protégé Ensemble, the dynamic precision and power of the two-time Grammy-nominated Dover Quartet has made them one of the world’s most lauded chamber ensembles. After being named one of the greatest string quartets of the last 100 years by BBC Music Magazine, the Dovers return to Portland for the first time since 2021. We will take in their masterful performances of Mendelssohn and Dvořák string quartets, as well as the Pacific Northwest Premiere of a new CMNW co-commissioned work by Chickasaw composer Jerod Impichcha̱achaaha’ Tate, written especially for them. This is a not-to-be-missed, rare opportunity to experience the fully astonishing Dover Quartet!
CMNW Co-Commission • Pacific Northwest Premiere
Collaboratively commissioned for the Dover Quartet by Chamber Music Northwest; Arizona Friends of Chamber Music; Cal Performances, UC Berkeley; Carnegie Hall; Chamber Music Houston; Chamber Music Pittsburgh; Chamber Music Society of Fort Worth; Curtis Institute of Music; Friends of Chamber Music Denver; Kingston Chamber Music Festival; Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music; and Shriver Hall Concert Series.
NOTE: Jonathan Ong—first violinist of the renowned Verona Quartet—will join the Dover Quartet for this concert. Jonathan will be stepping in for Dover violinist Joel Link, who cannot perform in this concert due to unforeseen circumstances.
Presented in collaboration with Oregon Bach Festival.
Dover Quartet is represented by Curtis Artist Management at Curtis Institute of Music.
“Few young American ensembles are as exciting and accomplished as the Dover Quartet.”
— The New Yorker
The Old Church
Saturday, 11/23 • 7:30 pm PT
Program
Click on any piece of music below to learn more about it.
- JEROD IMPICHCHAACHAAHA’ TATE Abokkoli’ Taloowa’ (Woodland Songs)
JEROD IMPICHCHAACHAAHA’ TATE (b. 1968) Abokkoli’ Taloowa’ (Woodland Songs) (20’)
I. Fani’ (Squirrel)
II. Bakbak (Woodpecker)
III. Issi’ (Deer)
IV. Nanni’ (Fish)
V. Shawi’ (Raccoon)CMNW Co-Commission
Abokkoli’ Taloowa’ (Woodland Songs), commissioned by Dover Quartet, is a modern Chickasaw composition about woodland animals from our Southeastern homelands. Our traditional woodland animals are so revered that our family clans are named after them. My family is Shawi’ Iksa’—Raccoon Clan.
Each woodland animal has a special ethos and there are many traditional stories about them. In this work, five woodland animals are represented: Squirrel, Woodpecker, Deer, Fish, and Raccoon. Each movement is like an epitome—a deep, dramatic, and rhapsodic expression of my feelings of being a Chickasaw man from a beautiful and robust culture. I love our animals, and I love composing works about them.
Abokkoli’ Taloowa’ (Woodland Songs) is full of Chickasaw melodies, rhythms, and musical structure. Sometimes these elements appear very clearly, where the melody may romantically soar above the ensemble. Sometimes they are abstracted into the texture of the quartet and hidden inside the spirit of the animal. I allow myself to fluidly dance between cultural clarity and modern expressionism. I am deeply inspired by our modern Native artists, choreographers, authors, and filmmakers—each proudly expressing their individual identity within rich ancestry. I encourage each listener to create their own emotional story of each animal and imprint these legends into their hearts.
—© Jerod Impichcha̱achaaha’ Tate
- FELIX MENDELSSOHN String Quartet No. 4 in E Minor, Op. 44, No. 2
FELIX MENDELSSOHN (1809-1847) String Quartet No. 4 in E Minor, Op. 44, No. 2 (28’)
I. Allegro assai appassionato
II. Scherzo
III. Andante
IV. Presto agitatoFelix Mendelssohn invariably comes up short in a typical side-by-side comparison with Ludwig van Beethoven. Mendelssohn’s music, for the most part, is more conservative, characterized by its well-crafted lyricism and mastery of early Romantic harmonies and structures. If we measure value solely in terms of novelty, Mendelssohn loses every time, but there are other equally valid criteria.
Mendelssohn tended to work within the established musical norms of his time. His music can be compared to a sonnet, a form of poetry with rigid parameters (a fixed number of syllables, lines, etc.). Within these boundaries, however, Mendelssohn wrote whatever he wished. His genius as a composer comes in part from his prodigal ability to express himself uniquely and meaningfully inside established musical frameworks.
In March 1837, Mendelssohn married 16-year-old Cécile Jeanrenaud, whom he had courted for the previous six months. While the couple honeymooned in the Black Forest that spring, Mendelssohn also wrote his Quartet in E Minor, Op. 44, No. 2.The Allegro assai appassionato combines the dark resonance of E minor with a restless tempo and sparkling melodies. The E major Scherzo continues the breathless pace of the first movement, punctuated by single-note rhythmic exclamations. For the pensive Andante, Mendelssohn showcases the violins. The first violin sings over the second violinist’s gently rocking countermelody. In the closing Presto, Mendelssohn returns to the excited tempo of the opening movement, combining fleet-fingered speed with some of the most technically challenging passages in the quartet.
—© Elizabeth Schwartz
- ANTONIN DVOŘÁK String Quartet No. 12 in F Major, Op. 96 (“American”)
ANTONIN DVOŘÁK (1841-1904) String Quartet No. 12 in F Major, Op. 96 (“American”) (26’)
I. Allegro ma non troppo
II. Lento
III. Molto Vivace
IV. Finale: vivace ma non troppoAll fans of Dvořák’s “American” music owe a debt of gratitude to Josef Kovařík. If Dvořák had not met and befriended the young Czech-American violinist, he would not have written the String Quartet in F Major, Op. 96, or the String Quintet, Op. 97 (both nicknamed “American”), nor would the summer of 1893, when Dvořák and his family spent the summer in a small town in northeastern Iowa, prove to be one of the most significant periods in the composer’s life.
Kovařík grew up in Spillville, Iowa, a small farming community settled by Czech and German immigrants, and he served as Dvořák’s personal assistant from 1892–95, while Dvořák headed the National Conservatory in New York City. Understanding Dvořák’s dislike of city life and his need for the slower pace and quiet of the countryside, Kovařík invited the composer and his family to leave behind the hustle and bustle of New York City and live in Spillville during the summer of 1893.
Spillville clearly agreed with Dvořák; within three days of his arrival, he began work on Op. 96. Dvořák wrote quickly, as was his wont, and finished the quartet two weeks later. Eager to hear his new work, Dvořák performed the first violin part, with members of the Kovařík family playing the other instruments, in the first performance in the music room of the Spillville school.
“When I wrote this quartet in the Czech community of Spillville in 1893, I wanted to write something for once that was very
melodious and straightforward,” Dvořák later wrote. “Dear Papa Haydn kept appearing before my eyes, and that is why it all turned out so simply. And it’s good that it did.” In keeping with his focus on clear themes and ideas, Dvořák crafted many of the melodies from pentatonic scales, with basic, understated harmonic accompaniments.Violists feel a particular kinship with Dvořák, himself an accomplished player. In Dvořák’s music, particularly his chamber works, the viola often takes center stage. Many of the “American” Quartet’s themes are first played by the viola, like the opening melody of the Allegro non troppo.
The unadorned melodies and ready accessibility of Op. 96 appealed to audiences from its first public performance by the Kneisel Quartet in Boston on New Year’s Day, 1894, and are part of the reason Op. 96 remains one of Dvořák’s most popular chamber works.
—© Elizabeth Schwartz
Artists
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Dover Quartet
String Quartet
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Joel Link, violin
Bryan Lee, violin
Julianne Lee, viola
Camden Shaw, celloNamed one of the greatest string quartets of the last 100 years by BBC Music Magazine and “the next Guarneri Quartet” by the Chicago Tribune, the two-time Grammy-nominated Dover Quartet is one of the world’s most in-demand chamber ensembles. The group’s awards include a stunning sweep of all prizes at the 2013 Banff International String Quartet Competition, grand and first prizes at the Fischoff Chamber Music Competition, and prizes at the Wigmore Hall International String Quartet Competition. Its honors include the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant, Chamber Music America’s Cleveland Quartet Award, and Lincoln Center’s Hunt Family Award. The Dover Quartet is the Penelope P. Watkins Ensemble in Residence at the Curtis Institute of Music and Quartet in Residence at Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music.
The Dover Quartet’s 2024-25 season includes premiere performances throughout North America of newly commissioned works by Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate, a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation and a leading composer of American Indian classical music; collaborative performances with preeminent artists that include pianists Michelle Cann, Marc-André Hamelin, and Haochen Zhang; and tours to Europe and Asia. Recent collaborators of the sought-after ensemble include Leif Ove Andsnes, Emanuel Ax, Inon Barnaton, Ray Chen, Anthony McGill, Edgar Meyer, the Pavel Haas Quartet, Roomful of Teeth, and Davóne Tines. The quartet has also recently premiered works by Mason Bates, Steven Mackey, Marc Neikrug, and Chris Rogerson.
The Dover Quartet’s highly acclaimed three-volume recording, Beethoven Complete String Quartets (Cedille Records), was hailed as “meticulously balanced, technically clean-as-a-whistle and intonationally immaculate” (The Strad). The quartet’s discography also includes Encores (Brooklyn Classical), a recording of 10 popular movements from the string quartet repertoire; The Schumann Quartets (Azica Records), which was nominated for a Grammy for Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance; Voices of Defiance: 1943, 1944, 1945 (Cedille Records); and an all-Mozart debut recording (Cedille Records), featuring Michael Tree, the late, long-time violist of the Guarneri Quartet. The quartet’s recording of Steven Mackey’s theatrical-musical work Memoir, recorded with the percussion group arx duo and narrator Natalie Christa Rakes, was released on Bridge Records in August 2024. A recording of the Tate commissions and Dvořák’s String Quartet in F Major, Op. 96 (“American”) will be released in 2025 on Curtis Studio, the record label of the Curtis Institute of Music.
The Dover Quartet draws from the lineage of the distinguished Guarneri, Cleveland, and Vermeer quartets. Its members studied at the Curtis Institute of Music, Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music, the New England Conservatory, and the Conservatoire Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris. They were mentored extensively by Shmuel Ashkenasi, James Dunham, Norman Fischer, Kenneth Goldsmith, Joseph Silverstein, Arnold Steinhardt, Michael Tree, and Peter Wiley. The Dover Quartet was formed at Curtis in 2008; its name pays tribute to Dover Beach by fellow Curtis alumnus Samuel Barber.
The Dover Quartet plays on the following instruments and proudly endorses Thomastik-Infeld strings:
Joel Link: a very fine Peter Guarneri of Mantua, 1710–15, on generous loan from Irene R. Miller through the Beare’s International Violin Society
Bryan Lee: Nicolas Lupot, Paris, 1810; Samuel Zygmuntowicz, Brooklyn, 2020
Julianne Lee: Robert Brode, 2005
Camden Shaw: Joseph Hill, London, 1770doverquartet.com
curtis.edu/doverquartet
On Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube @DoverQuartet -
Jonathan Ong
Violin
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Singaporean violinist Jonathan Ong is the first violinist and founding member of the internationally acclaimed Verona Quartet. An accomplished soloist and chamber musician, he actively concertizes throughout the world, having appeared in major venues such as Carnegie Hall, Wigmore Hall, Philharmonie de Paris, Hong Kong City Hall, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and the Smithsonian Institution.
Mr. Ong serves on the faculty of the Oberlin College & Conservatory. Additionally, he was recently appointed director of the CREDO String Quartet Summer Institute in Oberlin and co-artistic director of the Lunenburg Academy of Music Performance in Nova Scotia. He has taught and given masterclasses at institutions such as Indiana University, The Juilliard School, ENCORE Chamber Music, University of Southern California, University of Texas at Austin, the Peabody Institute, and the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music.
Mr. Ong’s recordings with the Verona Quartet can be found on Azica Records, Bright Shiny Things Records, and Dynamic Records. The quartet’s second album, Shatter, debuted in June 2023 at No. 1 on the U.S. Classical Billboard Charts, and was lauded for its “transportive quality” and “captivating playing” (BBC Music Magazine); their latest album, featuring the complete string quartets of György Ligeti, was released on Dynamic Records (Italy) in December 2023.
Mr. Ong has been a major prize winner at numerous competitions including the Concert Artists Guild, Wigmore Hall, Osaka, Chesapeake, Coleman, and Fischoff competitions. In 2020, he was awarded Chamber Music America’s Cleveland Quartet Award. He counts among his mentors Donald Weilerstein, Alexander Kerr, Paul Kantor, and Lynn Blakeslee, and he studied chamber music with members of the Juilliard, Cleveland, and Pacifica Quartets.
Mr. Ong performs on a Nicolas Lupot violin circa 1815, on generous loan from the Oberlin College & Conservatory.
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Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate
Composer
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Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate is a classical composer and citizen of the Chickasaw Nation in Oklahoma, dedicated to the development of American Indian classical composition. The Washington Post raved that “Tate is rare as an American Indian composer of classical music. Rarer still is his ability to effectively infuse classical music with American Indian nationalism.” He is a 2022 Chickasaw Hall of Fame inductee and a 2022 Distinguished Alumni Award recipient from The Cleveland Institute of Music. In 2021, he was appointed a Cultural Ambassador for the U. S. Department of State.
Among many recent premieres, Tate’s highlights include commissions from the American Composers Orchestra, Cantori NY, and the New York Philharmonic—for which The New York Times praised Tate’s “gifts for texture and color.” Turtle Island Quartet premiered his Little Loksi’ alongside works by Terence Blanchard, David Balakrishnan, and Rhiannon Giddens nationwide.
This season, Dover String Quartet tours Tate’s new quartet, Woodland Songs, as well as a newly-commissioned orchestration of Pura Fe’s Rattle Songs throughout the U.S. Oklahoma’s Canterbury Voices performs the world premiere of Tate’s Loksi’ Shaali’ (Shell Shaker), the first opera written by an American Indian composer in their own language, and takes it to Mount Holyoke University in spring 2025. PostClassical Ensemble presents an all-American Indian program curated by Tate in Washington D.C., and his popular work Chokfi’ has been programmed by Austin, Eureka, and Ft. Collins symphonies. Tate is currently at work on a new violin concerto for acclaimed violinist Irina Muresanu, as well as new works for the Oklahoma City Philharmonic and North Carolina Symphony Orchestra.
Tate’s commissioned works have been performed by the New York Philharmonic, National Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony and Chorus, Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, American Composers Orchestra, Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, Oklahoma City Philharmonic, Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, South Dakota Symphony Orchestra, Colorado Ballet, Oklahoma City Ballet, Canterbury Voices, Dale Warland Singers, Santa Fe Desert Chorale, and Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. His music was also featured in the HBO series Westworld.
Tate is a three-time commissioned recipient from the American Composers Forum, a Chamber Music America Classical Commissioning Program recipient, a Cleveland Institute of Music Alumni Achievement Award recipient, a governor-appointed Creativity Ambassador for the State of Oklahoma, and an Emmy Award-winner for his work on the Oklahoma Educational Television Authority documentary The Science of Composing.
Tate’s recording credits include Iholba’ (The Vision) for Solo Flute, Orchestra & Chorus and Tracing Mississippi, Concerto for Flute & Orchestra, recorded by the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra and Chorus on the Grammy Award-winning label Azica Records. In 2021, Azica released Tate’s Lowak Shoppala’ (Fire and Light), recorded by Nashville String Machine with the Chickasaw Nation Children’s Chorus and Dance Troupe, and the label recently released Tate’s inaugural composition, Winter Moons, and his MoonStrike, recorded by Apollo Chamber Players. His Metropolitan Museum of Art commission Pisachi (Reveal) is featured on ETHEL String Quartet’s album Documerica.
Tate earned his Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance from Northwestern University and his Master of Music in Piano Performance and Composition from The Cleveland Institute of Music. His middle name, Impichchaachaaha’, means “their high corncrib” and is his inherited traditional Chickasaw house name. Learn more at www.jerodtate.com.