On Tuesday, April 15, 2025, the Isidore String Quartet performance at the Vancouver Playhouse brought the 2024-2025 Friends of Chamber Music season to a triumphant close. We enjoyed a wonderful evening that gave us a chance to face the future of our series by presenting this fabulous young ensemble to our delighted audience of friends, while simultaneously also closing a significant chapter in the organization’s history.
Violinists Adrian Steele and Phoenix Avalon, violist Devin Moore, and cellist Joshua McClendon began with Mozart’s String Quartet in C Major, K 465, “Dissonance”. Given our current international political climate, this was an oddly apt choice for a starting point. The performance by this young group of musicians starts ominously but moves into elegant lightness with touches of poignance in the slow movement. These technically accomplished artists revealed a clean-toned and beautifully balanced interpretation, taking the time to get it right. Their shared approach to the score allowed the audience to feel closer to Mozart’s Classical intention rather than any extraneous mannerisms.
Devin Moore gave a brief introduction about American composer and six-time Grammy winning jazz pianist Billy Childs and his String Quartet No. 3, “Unrequited”. This work is a response to an imagined continuation of the emotional journey begun in Leoš Janáček’s String Quartet No. 2, “Intimate Letters”. Childs’ work continues the emotional journey of that ultimately unrequited relationship between Janáček and his much younger and married female correspondent, the object of his passion. Childs’ music is modern and does not directly mirror the earlier composer: it is largely elegiac, with moments of cool despondency, rather than appearing angry or tragic. And it has a lyricism that is not always heard in contemporary music. While difficult to grasp fully in one hearing, based on the Isidore String Quartet’s fine playing of this touching music – and appreciative comments from audience members – we hope to hear this piece again. The violist mentioned afterwards that the group plans to record Childs’ quartets so we will also look forward to their recording becoming available.
Performing any of Beethoven’s late period quartets can be a challenge for a young group. That accepted wisdom has been played out in past seasons with some newer ensembles struggling until they gained more competence with these demanding works. Not so for the Isidore String Quartet in their keenly balanced interpretation of String Quartet No. 12 in E-flat Major, Opus 127. Given the relatively few years this group has been working together, their maturity and shared approach as artists is very impressive. This is complex music, in terms of dynamics, rhythms, and emphasis. They made it sound clear, even transparent. Again, as throughout the evening, we heard the precision and certainty of blended artistry serving the music and the audience. This string quartet gave us something special to treasure. And the Isidore’s future looks very bright. Once the echoes of the last notes died away, the audience gave the Isidore String Quartet a well-deserved standing ovation.
With the Isidore String Quartet one of several representatives of the new generation of terrific chamber music ensembles that we have heard in the past couple of years, this performance was a fitting end to our 2024-2025 series. It was almost halfway through this season when we said goodbye to the long-time president of our volunteer board of directors, Mr. Eric Wilson, who passed away in January. Mr. Wilson, at age 97, had been proactive in encouraging us to present these young musicians to play for all of us, and in including contemporary music as part of the regular repertoire.
