The Calidore String Quartet is recognized as one of the world’s foremost interpreters of a vast chamber music repertory, from the cycles of quartets by Beethoven and Mendelssohn to works of celebrated contemporary voices like György Kurtág, Jörg Widmann, and Caroline Shaw. For more than a decade, the Calidore has enjoyed performances and residencies in the world’s major venues and festivals, released multiple critically acclaimed recordings, and won numerous awards. The Los Angeles Times described the musicians as “astonishing,” their playing “shockingly deep,” approaching “the kind of sublimity other quartets spend a lifetime searching.” The New York Times noted the Quartet’s “deep reserves of virtuosity and irrepressible dramatic instinct,” and the Washington Post wrote that “four more individual musicians are unimaginable, yet these speak, breathe, think and feel as one”. 

The New York City based Calidore String Quartet has appeared in venues throughout North America,  Europe, and Asia including Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, London’s Wigmore Hall, Berlin’s Konzerthaus, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, Brussels’ BOZAR, Cologne Philharmonie, Seoul’s Kumho Arts  Hall, and at major festivals such as the BBC Proms, Verbier, Ravinia, Mostly Mozart, Music@Menlo,  Rheingau, East Neuk, and Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. Always seeking new commissioning  opportunities, the Quartet has given world premieres of works by Caroline Shaw, Anna Clyne, Han Lash,  Huw Watkins and Mark-Anthony Turnage and collaborated with artists such as Jean-Yves Thibaudet,  Marc-André Hamelin, Joshua Bell, Emerson String Quartet, Jeffrey Kahane, David Shifrin, Inon Barnatan,  Lawrence Power, Sharon Isbin, David Finckel and Wu Han.  

Highlights of the 23-24 season include return appearances at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and People’s Symphony in New York as well as concerts in Seattle, Palm Beach, Ottawa, Toronto, Kalamazoo and a European tour of United Kingdom, Estonia and Germany. The Calidore team up with pianist and composer Gabriela Montero for a world premiere of her new piano quintet at the Gilmore Piano Festival (MI) and also enjoy collaborations with the violist Matthew Lipman and harpist Bridget Kibbey, with whom they will premiere a new work by Sebastian Currier. Last season, the Calidore joined the Emerson String Quartet on their farewell tour in the Mendelssohn Octet and collaborated with clarinetist Anthony McGill and bassist Xavier Foley. The Quartet members also performed at Carnegie Hall alongside Anne-Sophie Mutter in a memorial concert honoring André Previn, featuring his compositions. 

In their most ambitious recording project to date, the Calidore is set to release the complete Beethoven’s  String Quartets for Signum Records in the 24/25 season. Volume I, containing the late quartets, was  released in 2023 to great critical acclaim. BBC Music Magazine said the Calidore’s performances  “penetrate right to the heart of the music” and “can stand comparison with the best.” Their previous  recordings on Signum include titles Babel with music by Schumann, Shaw and Shostakovich, and Resilience with works by Prokofiev, Janáček, Golijov and Mendelssohn. 

The Calidore String Quartet was founded at the Colburn School in Los Angeles in 2010. Within two years, the quartet won grand prizes in virtually all the major US chamber music competitions, including the Fischoff, Coleman, Chesapeake, and Yellow Springs competitions, and it captured top prizes at the 2012 ARD International Music Competition in Munich and the International Chamber Music Competition Hamburg. The Quartet first made international headlines as the winner of the $100,000 Grand Prize of the 2016 M-Prize International Chamber Music Competition and it was the first and only North American ensemble to win the Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship. The Calidore was also named a BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist and in 2018, it was awarded the Avery Fisher Career Grant, having won the Lincoln Center Emerging Artist Award a year prior. The Calidore is currently in residence with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in New York. 

In 2021 the Calidore members joined the faculty of the University of Delaware School of Music and serve  as artistic directors of the newly established Graduate String Quartet Fellowship Residency and the  University of Delaware Chamber Music Series. Prior to taking this position, they served as artist-in residence at the University of Toronto, University of Michigan and Stony Brook University. Now dedicated  teachers and passionate supporters of music education themselves, the Calidore is grateful to have been  mentored by the Emerson Quartet, Quatuor Ébène, Andre Roy, Arnold Steinhardt, David Finckel, Günter  Pichler, Guillaume Sutre, Paul Coletti, and Ronald Leonard. 

The Calidore String Quartet plays the following instruments: 

Jeffrey Myers plays a violin by Francesco Rugeri c.1680, owned by a private benefactor on loan through  the Leonhard Fellowship and plays a bow by Francois Tourte. 

Ryan Meehan plays a violin by Vincenzo Panormo c.1775 and a bow by Joseph Henry. 

Jeremy Berry plays a viola by Giovanni Battista Ceruti c.1811, owned by a private benefactor and a 1903  Umberto Muschietti viola and plays a bow by Pierre Simon. 

Estelle Choi plays a cello by Charles Jacquot c.1830