Argus Quartet to Perform in Cooperstown

Additional Information

The Argus Quartet, a versatile and dynamic up-and-coming ensemble, will perform at Christ Episcopal Church on Sunday, May 6 at 4pm as part of the Cooperstown Summer Music Festival’s 20th anniversary season.

Recent first-prize winners at both the 2017 Concert Artists Guild Victor Elmaleh Competition and the coveted 2017 M-Prize Chamber Arts Competition, the Argus Quartet is currently in the first year of a two-year appointment as the Graduate Quartet in Residence at the Juilliard School, where they work closely with the illustrious Juilliard String Quartet.

The quartet will bring to Cooperstown an innovative program entitled ‘Visions and Miracles’ featuring selections of music that draw from philosophical, divine, ancient, and otherworldly sources. A diverse array of works will be performed, representing composers spanning the Renaissance to the present, including Josquin, Haydn, Mendelssohn, Theofanides and Knox.

This concert’s program is representative of the Argus Quartet’s commitment to honoring the traditions of chamber music’s past while also forging a new path forward. “The pieces we will perform span a period of almost 500 years,” says Dana Kelley, the quartet’s violist. “We are hoping our audience gets a glimpse of the varied, and sometimes similar, techniques composers from such diverse time periods use to convey these intangible themes.”

The group considers the string quartet to be uniquely positioned to transmit the lofty ideas around which their program is formed. “The string quartet has profound communicative possibilities and has long been acknowledged as among the most intimate and expressive combinations of instruments,” says Jason Issokson, the first violinist.

The close relationship between quartet players is also a large part of what draws musicians to a career of quartet playing, a fact supported by the Argus Quartet’s website, which boasts metrics on the number of meals, rehearsals hours, and “bursts of laughter” the group has shared.

“We know each other on a very deep level,” says Kelley. “We react in real time to each other's musical instincts during our performances.”

Those curious to get to know the Argus Quartet are invited to attend CSMF’s May 6th concert, where the audience will be able to witness the power of this intimate relationship firsthand.