On April 10 2024, we performed Tod Machover’s “Gammified” for amplified string quartet and electronics at Boston’s legendary Symphony Hall as part of the Boston Symphony’s “Music For The Senses” Festival!
Our latest world premiere from Kurt Rohde!
On April 6 2024, we gave the world premiere of Kurt Rohde’s latest work for string quartet “seeking all that’s still unsung” to an enthusiastic crowd at Brandeis University’s Slosberg Music Center! Thank you Kurt for writing this epic and remarkable work, we were so thrilled and honored to be a part of bringing it to life! And a big thank you to Chamber Music America’s Commissioning Program for supporting the creation of important new work like this.
A trip across our northern border!
On Sunday March 3 we played for the Chamber Music Hamilton series at the Art Gallery of Hamilton in Ontario, including works by Zhou Long, Ravel, and Brahms’ G major viola quintet with CMH artistic director Michael Schulte joining us on 2nd viola!
Our latest recording has been released: Henri Lazarof Quartet no. 6!
Exciting news today! We are thrilled to announce the official release by Immersive Music Project of our world premiere recording of Henri Lazarof’s 6th Quartet, a single from our upcoming all-Lazarof album! This has been a labor of love for us, and we are so happy to finally share this music with the world. Available for digital purchase and streaming on all major platforms, including:
Amazon Music
Apple Music
Spotify
The first movement “Deciso” can be previewed on YouTube
2022 Commission Prize Update
We'd like to to thank all the composers who entered our 2022 Lydian String Quartet Commission Prize Competition! We know you've been anxious to find out the result, and we are pleased to be able to announce the winner here! Meanwhile, our 2020 winner Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon’s new work Alebrijes will have its world premiere performed by the Lydian Quartet at Brandeis University’s Slosberg Music Center on Saturday night March 25 2023 at 8 pm.
We welcome our newest Lydian, Julia Glenn!
Julia Glenn
The Lydian Quartet is thrilled to announce that Julia Glenn will be joining the quartet as our new second violinist starting this fall! We are so excited for the extraordinary artistry, creativity, personality and gorgeous sound that she brings to the quartet. Mark your calendars for November 5, 2022 @ 8pm for Julia’s Brandeis debut with the Lydian Quartet at Slosberg Music Center!
Boston native Julia Glenn has been hailed as "remarkable," "gripping," and "a brilliant soloist" by the New York Times and performs internationally on modern and baroque violins. She joins the Lydian Quartet from the Tianjin Juilliard School, where she served as violin faculty and was a member of the Tianjin Juilliard Ensemble.
Ms. Glenn has appeared on stages including Alice Tully Hall, Carnegie Hall’s Weill Hall, Sanders Theatre, Jordan Hall, the Beijing Recital Hall, Beijing's National Centre for the Performing Arts, and Shanghai Concert Hall. She has also recently performed with the Shanghai Camerata, New York New Music Ensemble, ACRONYM, Cantata Profana, members of the Juilliard String Quartet, and Soloists of New England. In January of 2016 she gave the world premiere of Milton Babbitt’s violin concerto to critical acclaim; her article on the work was recently published in Contemporary Music Review.
With a deep interest in exploring and sharing the music and culture of China, Julia enjoys drawing on her backgrounds in phonology and Chinese language to open up new avenues in perception and performance. Her doctoral dissertation was titled “Hearing in Tone: A Phonetic Approach to the Analysis and Performance of Chinese Contemporary Music.” As the recipient of Juilliard’s 2019 John Erksine Faculty Prize, she is currently working with Chen Yi on a video project to commission and film dance choreography for Chen’s Memory. This summer she will also record a solo album of new and recent music by Chinese and Chinese-speaking composers. She has recently presented talks and lecture-performances on her work at the Harvard Shanghai Center, Hamburg Hochschule für Musik und Theatre, Harvard University, Shanghai Conservatory, Beijing Central Conservatory, and Juilliard.
Ms. Glenn has previously recorded for Spice Classics and Swan Studio labels. She is a 2018 graduate of Juilliard’s C.V. Starr doctoral program, where she worked with Joseph Lin, Sylvia Rosenberg, and Cynthia Roberts. In 2013 she obtained her master’s from New England Conservatory with James Buswell, and in 2012 her bachelor’s in linguistics magna cum laude from Harvard University. She plays a 2018 Benjamin Ruth.
We say goodbye and thank you to Judy!
Our beloved Judith Eissenberg is moving on from her post as our second violinist and as the last remaining founding member still with the Lydian String Quartet after 42 remarkable years of service to the quartet and Brandeis University (1980-2022) where she also founded the intercultural residency program MusicUnitesUS. 42 years: that would be a long marriage for anybody, and Judy was musically married to three other quartet members in five different configurations, every one of them always trying to come up with a unified point of view! Now Professor Emeritus, she will devote more of her time to her position as Professor of Music at Boston Conservatory at Berklee (2001-present). She has played a significant role in teaching and coordinating chamber music there as well as being involved in helping BOCO students develop their ideas and resources for community engagement.
Second violin since 1980, Judy participated in competitions that won the Lydians top prizes at the Evian (1982, Best Performance of a Contemporary Piece and Best Performance of a French Piece), Banff (1983), and Portsmouth (1985) International String Quartet Competitions, and winning the Naumburg Chamber Music Award in 1984. She can be heard as a Lydian in over 30 recordings (Nonesuch, CRI, Harmonia Mundi, New World Records, Musica Omnia, Albany Records, etc.). Other chamber music affiliations include Boston Chamber Music Society, Emmanuel Music, and various summer festivals throughout the US. With experience in period instrument performance, she has been soloist with and core member of Boston Baroque and Handel and Haydn Society.
Judy continues to collaborate with musicians in western classical, jazz, Korean Gugak, Indian classical, Chinese classical, and enjoys cross-disciplinary work in film, theater, dance, electronics/digital, video, etc.. During her run as a Lydian, the Quartet received the 2005 Top Classical Performance Award (Boston Globe), the 1992 Boston Globe Best Contemporary Recording, as well as Best Record of the Year and Artists of the Year (Boston Globe, 1990). She has received multiple grants and awards for her work in the Western classical tradition, including from the Copland Foundation, Pew Charitable Trust, Chamber Music America, Meet the Composer/Rockefeller Foundation/AT Jazz Program, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Endowment for the Arts, and Readers’ Digest. She has also received grants and fellowships for her work and research in diverse world traditions, including: a grant (2016) from Center Stage Korea, a grant (2014) from the Whiting Foundation Fellowship for research in Andean Music of Peru, was a (2013) Harvard University Fellow for studies in Ethnomusicology, received a (2013) Norman Grant for Faculty Research to go to Bamako, Mali and a (2011) fellowship sponsored by South Korean government to attend the International Gugak Workshop in Seoul, one of 19 international participants.
Judy’s presence will be sorely missed in the Slosberg classrooms and on the concert hall stages at Lydian concerts. We are all grateful that Judy will be close by, teaching chamber music at the Boston Conservatory at Berklee and focusing on other performing work outside of the quartet. And we are very excited for the music making that the future holds for us all. Once a Lydian, always a Lydian!
Lydian Quartet Second Violin Search announced!
The Lydian String Quartet, at Brandeis University since 1980, announces auditions for the position of second violinist. Prize-winners at multiple international competitions as well as the winners of the Walter W. Naumburg Award for Chamber Music Performance, the Quartet champions contemporary music as well as traditional repertoire. The Quartet has a biennial Commission Prize, works with young and established composers, premieres new works in concerts, and records works from the full range of the repertoire. Members of the Quartet hold faculty appointments in the Department of Music. Information about the quartet may be found at www.lydianquartet.com.
Initial appointment to this half-time, benefits-eligible position would be for up to five years at the rank of Associate Professor of the Practice beginning in the Fall 2022 semester, renewable contingent on excellent performance. This position is subject to budget approval. Duties include rehearsal and performance on campus, instrumental/chamber music teaching and classroom teaching, and departmental and university service. The candidate will demonstrate expertise in the performance of traditional and contemporary classical chamber music; the ability to teach with an adventurous, energetic and entrepreneurial spirit is also sought.
Applications should include recordings of both solo and ensemble work (including live performance), evidence of teaching experience, contact information for three professional references, CV, cover letter, and teaching statement. In addition, please submit a 2 - 3 page statement on your contributions to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging, including information about your understanding of these issues, your record of professional activities, mentoring, and contributions to the discipline that are indicators of your commitment to advancing equity and inclusion if hired as a Brandeis faculty member. This statement may be included in your cover letter, or as a separate document.
Applications may be submitted online to https://academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/19886. Questions may be directed to: Professor Andrea Segar, Chair, Lydian Quartet Search Committee, Department of Music, Slosberg Music Center, MS 051, Brandeis University, 415 South Street, Waltham, MA 02453. If you are unable to upload your music recordings directly, please contact Andrea Segar, Search Chair at asegar@brandeis.edu to coordinate the receipt of your files. The application deadline is December 27, 2021.
At Brandeis, we believe that diversity, equity, and inclusion are essential components of academic excellence. Brandeis University is an affirmative action, equal opportunity employer that is committed to creating equitable access and opportunities for applicants to all employment positions. Because diversity, equity, and inclusion are at the core of Brandeis' history and mission, we value and are seeking candidates that represent a variety of social identities, including those that have been underrepresented in higher education, who possess skills that spark innovation, and who, through their scholarly pursuits, teaching, and/or service experiences, bring expertise in building, engaging, and sustaining a pluralistic, just, and inclusive campus community.
Lydian Quartet and Kurt Rohde awarded CMA Classical Commissioning grant!
The Lydian String Quartet is excited to be one of twelve ensembles awarded a grant through Chamber Music America’s Classical Commissioning program supported by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to commission a new work from our amazing composer friend Kurt Rohde! The announcement from CMA:
New York, NY (August 23, 2021)—Chamber Music America (CMA), the national network for ensemble music professionals, today announced the distribution of $1,290,450 through its six grant programs: New Jazz Works, Performance Plus, and Presenter Consortium for Jazz, supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation; Classical Commissioning, supported by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; Ensemble Forward, supported by the New York Community Trust; and Digital Residency, launched this year to mitigate pandemic-related live performance interruptions, enabling artists and presenters to maintain and cultivate relationships with their audiences, supported by Chamber Music America’s Residency Endowment Fund.
This funding will provide key support for the creation, performance, and presentation of small ensemble works, community engagement/audience-building initiatives, and artist/ensemble development. “This has been such an extraordinary year for the small ensemble music field,” said Margaret M. Lioi, CMA’s CEO who retires this month after 21 years of service to the field. “We are so grateful to our funders for helping us maintain our grant programs during this incredibly difficult time, and applaud the creativity, fortitude, and resilience of our musicians and presenters. Despite the unprecedented challenges they faced, they were unwavering in their commitment to the music and their audiences. CMA is privileged to have helped their projects come to fruition.”
The grantees in each program were selected by independent peer panels and adjudicated throughout CMA’s 2021 fiscal year (July 1, 2020 - June 30, 2021).
2020 Commission Prize Update
We'd like to to thank all the composers who entered our 2020 Commission Prize Competition! We know you've been anxious to find out the result, and we are pleased to be able to announce the winner here!
Our newest video is online!
We hope our newest video of a wonderful late Haydn quartet brings good cheer in a time of COVID!
Lydian String Quartet plays Haydn's String Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 76, No. 6
Another new recording!
The Lydian Quartet is joined by the powerful Korean gayageum artist Yi Ji-young in a performance of Elective Affinites by California-based composer Laurie San Martin, available on New Focus Recordings in a co-production with the Association for the Promotion of New Music (APNM). Martin treats the quartet as one large hybrid instrument and counterpart to the gayaguem. The piece alternates between gayaguem passages exploring its sonic characteristics and vigorous ensemble sections, leading through an elegant dance to close in a halo of harmonics.
Gapplegate Classical-Modern Music Review (click for web site)
by Grego Applegate Edwards
The APNM (Association for the Promotion of New Music) provides the New Music community out there with an invaluable boost. It came into being in 1975 thanks to Jacques-Louis Monod "as a community of American composers with the purpose of sharing common musical values and creating a network of professional support. APNM fosters the compositional creativity of its members by offering performances of their music, publication services, and promotional visibility."
Accordingly they have recently released a well conceived anthology of some 14 works in a double CD set entitled Music from the APNM Volume One, Chamber Music and Volume Two, Computer + Electronic Music (New Focus Recordings FCR248).
There is quite a bit of good music to be heard, all in a more or less High Modern vein, that is to say music of a certain level of abstraction, traditionally untraditional without necessarily being dodecaphonic or atonal (although that not being "prohibited" either), that creates an aural color field via unusual instrumental combinations, electronic timbral niceties and expressive fullness. Each is a world unto itself.
The anthology starts out with two works combining traditional Chinese or Korean and conventional Western instruments in intriguing ways, with Stephen Dydo's "Wind Chimes" (2012) for pipa and guitar followed by Laurie San Martin's Elective Affinities (2010) for gayageum and string quartet. Both thoroughly bridge the East-West gap with contentual affinity and a sort of middle ground between the ultra-new and the considered tradition.
…
The judicial selection of worthy recent works by artists we might not otherwise come to know forms a tribute to the discernment of the APNM and its trustees. This is an essential anthology of the New Music Moderns currently coming up today. If it is any indication, and it no doubt is, we are most assuredly not lacking talented new voices to take us into the future. Highly recommended.
Our latest recording has been released!
Our newest promo video is online!
Our newest promo video is online, highlighting our upcoming collaboration with David Krakauer and Vijay Iyer!
Lydian Collaborations: Quintets with clarinetist David Krakauer, new Vijay Iyer commission for spring 2021
Our latest recording is about to be released!
Happy New Year! One of the many things we are looking forward to in 2020 - our recording of Kurt Rohde’s epic, moving quartet “Treatises for an unrecovered past,” the result of our first Lydian Commission Prize! Kurt Rohde’s new Albany Records CD “It wasn’t a dream” is nearly done! Stayed tuned for a release in a couple of months, with additional music with words by #DianeSeuss & #ScottHunter sung by #CharlotteMundy & #AndrewFuchs with #BrooklynArtSongSociety. Cover art by the remarkable #JenniferCoates
Unforgotten Song
Our second violinist Judith Eissenberg wrote a thought-provoking piece in the Boston Musical Intelligencer about our upcoming collaboration in November with the multi-dimensional Korean musician named gamin, linked here
One concert only - The Lydian Octet!
We couldn’t be more excited over our upcoming reunion, with all of the living former members of the Lydian Quartet returning along with special guest violist Gillian Armstrong to join the current lineup in a special performance of Mendelssohn’s ever exuberant masterpiece of an octet, and for a cause dear to our hearts. All proceeds from the Slosberg Music Center event will benefit the Mary Ruth Ray Scholarship Fund, in memory of our our beloved founding violist and which supports Brandeis undergraduate instrumentalists. More about this concert here
Mary Ruth Ray
Our latest reviews in Boston
In successive weekends, we first played Britten’s 3rd quartet on Emmanuel Music’s Britten festival, followed by a Russian - themed program at Boston Conservatory. Here are two rave reviews from the Boston Musical Intelligencer:
NOVEMBER 8, 2018
Britten Mini-Festival Concludes
by Steven Ledbetter link here
"The last half of the program consisted of Britten’s last work, his String Quartet No. 3, in G Major; Op. 94, performed by the excellent Lydian Quartet (Andrea Segar and Judith Eissenberg, violins, Mark Berger, viola, and Joshua Gordon, cello). Britten partly composed it in a city he loved, and the site of his final opera, Death in Venice. The five movements basically alternate faster and slower tempos, with the fast movements in second and fourth position. The Lydian players masterfully projected the moods and light textures (as the duet patterns of the first movement, and the dying away effect of the closing Passacaglia, sharply contrasted with the fast Ostinato of the second movement and the wild Burlesque of the fourth. In my experience, at least, this is been the least often performed of Britten’s string quartets; I am especially grateful for this luminous and dramatic reading."
NOVEMBER 11, 2018
Russian Themes Course Through Fenway
by Julie Ingelfinger link here
“The Brandeis-based Lydian Quartet treated last night’s delighted Seully Hall audience to two important 20th Century Russian works along with a much earlier work (1806), Beethoven’s Opus 59, No. 1, the first Razumovsky quartet, with its Russian-themed third movement. Founded in 1980, the Lydian’s present members include first violinist Andrea Segar (joined in 2016), second violinist, Judith Eissenberg (founding member), violist Mark Berger (joined in 2014) and cellist Joshua Gordon (member since 2002). Since its earliest days, the quartet has garnered many awards and praise for their consummate artistry and thoughtful thematic programming; tonight’s concert reflected that tradition.
The Tatar-Russian composer Sofia Gubaidulina’s single-movement Quartet Number 4, played exquisitely by the Lydians, places the musicians on stage along with two prerecorded quartets in which the first (A) is a quarter tone higher than the second (B). The work, commissioned by the Kronos Quartet and premiered nearly 25 years ago in January, 1994, still sounds and feels fresh and experimental, yet includes many classical elements, ranging from medieval polyphony to contemporary work. Gubaidulina asks “how the ‘real’ arises from the ‘unreal’… creatively speaking.” . . . Is this a quartet? Or is some other title more appropriate here?”
Embodying that question, the quartet came on stage, sat down, tuned and adjusted their music and stands and then waited, as music wafted from speakers along with simultaneous projections of rectangles with stain-glassed hues, befitting the hammer-beam ceiling of the Hall. They then sat still and silent until the composition directed them to add their in-person sounds. The sequence created a reverential mood, in which pizzicato/arco recorded sounds become enmeshed with the mostly bowed melodies of the in-person players, engaging the audience to consider musical heritage. The combined effect was electrically hypnotic.
Prokofiev wrote his Quartet No. 2 in F Major during World War II in a five-week period starting in November, 1941, in the Kabardino-Balkar capital, Nalchik, about 1000 miles south of Moscow, where leading composers and artists were sent after the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union. He had been encouraged/commanded to create work emblematic of the region including regional folksongs, which he incorporated and transformed as melodies, textures and rhythms into the three-movement work. Last night the musicians rendered the quartet with their typical depth, precision and musicality. The first movement contains Prokofiev’s hallmark dissonances but adds a regional feel with the folk melody, Sosruko, and its accordion-like violin accompaniment and the dance, Udzh Starikov. In the second movement, the composer includes the strains of the kemange (kjamantchi), a Caucasian 3-stringed instrument and cellist Gordon fairly sang a love song. Reprises in the final Allegro with two melodies alternating with a mountain dance bring the listener back to the first movement. The Lyds were in their element.
From the initial cello entrance to the final tutti of the fourth movement of Beethoven’s familiar first Razumovsky, the ensemble gave us a remarkable traversal. The first movement, an allegro, with its recapitulation of the opening melody at intervals sounded fresh and sonorous. The second movement’s allegretto vivace and sempre scherzando incorporates moments of hymn-like sonority amidst its energy and foreboding. The quartet provided a soulful account of the majestic adagio molto e mesto-attaca in the F minor third movement. The allegro “Thème Russe” of the final movement with its period Russian melody ended the evening with verve. This first Razumovsky may appear with predictable frequency, but not so often with the Lyd’s memorable freshness.
The Lydian Quartet will be appearing next at Brandeis on December 15th and at Emmanuel Music on January 26th. Given the foursome’s thoughtful programming, as well as their joy and accomplishment, I urge readers to attend.”
2017 Commission Prize Update
We'd like to to thank all the composers who entered our 2017 Commission Prize Competition! We know you've been anxious to find out the result, and we are pleased to be able announce the result here!
Our 2017 Commission Prize information is now posted!
We are excited to announce our third competition for the composition of an original work for string quartet. The winning composer will receive a $15,000 commission to compose a large-scale (15- to 30-minute) string quartet that will be premiered by the Lydian String Quartet in spring 2018. The application deadline will be December 23, 2016. For more information go to our About The Prize page.