Calidore String Quartet - American Tapestry
(Signum Records, 2025)
The Calidore String Quartet’s American Tapestry is a left turn from their well received, award-winning The Complete Beethoven String Quartets (Signum, 2025). The recording remains incisively focused and contemplated with the goal of providing a program of American music drawn from all corners of the twentieth century. Founded in 2010 at the Colburn School, the quartet — violinists Jeffrey Myers and Ryan Meehan, violist Jeremy Berry, and cellist Estelle Choi — has become the enfant terrible (in a good way) of the modern quartet scene. The group has clearly thrown down the creative gauntlet with an eye on the Kronos Quartet.
Released to coincide with the America 250 Anniversary celebrations, this album departs from the dense European tradition to explore a “dialogue among many voices.” The quartet eschew the usual orchestral lushness for a lean, organic, and emotive take on Barber’s Adagio and press hard into the rhythmic traditions informing the music of Wynton Marsalis from his Swinging Into the 21st series, originally released in 1999 and re-released in 2012. At the Octoroon Balls is Marsalis’ striking string quartet contribution to that set. From John Williams’s plain-spoken Lincoln theme in “With Malice Toward None” to an anxious, high-urgency Korngold finale, the whole album feels like a vivid conversation between different styles.
The Calidore String Quartet’s closer microphone placement adds a crisp definition to the quicker passages; this creates a driving, urgent energy in the finale that truly captivates.