This ensemble of acclaimed musicians - including past and present members of the Navarra, Eusebius, and Castalian Quartets, and leader of the London Symphony Orchestra - comes together to explore three diverse and colourful string quartets composed by homesick Europeans in the USA.
Dvořák moved to the United States in 1892 and was initially energised by his new surroundings, composing the American Quartet and his famous Ninth Symphony, From the New World, before homesickness drew him back to Bohemia. After Kreisler was wounded in World War I, he moved to the USA and composed his only string quartet as a nostalgic tribute to his native Vienna. He returned to Europe after WW1 but permanently emigrated shortly before the outbreak of WW2. That same year Britten moved due to his pacifist convictions. He became deeply homesick and returned to Britain in 1942, where he successfully applied for conscientious objector status.
Programme
Antonín Dvořák - String Quartet no. 12 in F major, op. 96: ‘American’
Fritz Kreisler - String Quartet in A minor
~~~ Interval ~~~
Benjamin Britten - String Quartet no. 1 in D major, op. 25
~ Benjamin Marquise Gilmore & Sijie Chen - violins, Hannah Shaw - viola, Christopher Graves - ‘cello ~
Join us in the wood-panelled Music Room at Burgh House - a Grade-1 listed 1704 house, museum and art gallery in the heart of Hampstead.
Tickets: £28/£38 (Under 30s £15)
Vermeer Season Pass available
Doors open 6.30
Duration: approx. 2 hrs (with an interval)
Benjamin Marquise Gilmore
Benjamin Marquise Gilmore enjoys a busy life as an orchestral and chamber musician, joining the LSO as Leader in August 2023. He was concertmaster of the Philharmonia Orchestra between 2019 and 2023, and has been a member of the Navarra Quartet since 2021. He is also a member of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and from 2016 to 2019 was leader of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, to which he continues to return as guest leader and director. A lover of opera, he is also a frequent guest concertmaster with the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House.
Benjamin studied with Natalia Boyarskaya at the Yehudi Menuhin School and with Pavel Vernikov in Vienna, and received further guidance and inspiration from Julian Rachlin and Miriam Fried. He won prizes at the Oskar Back, Joseph Joachim and Salzburg Mozart competitions, and has participated in festivals such as Kuhmo, Prussia Cove and Ravinia. Benjamin’s father was the musicologist Bob Gilmore, his grandfather is the conductor Lev Markiz, and his mother Maria Markiz has variously been a musicologist, interpreter, equestrian and data analyst. He is married to Hannah Shaw, a violist, and enjoys cooking and cycling, in both of which disciplines he makes up in enthusiasm what he lacks in proficiency.
Sijie ‘Susie’ Chen
Chinese-born British violinist Sijie 'Susie' Chen moved to the UK when she was five years old. While studying in the UK, USA and Germany, she was a string finalist in the BBC Young Musician of the Year Competition. She now enjoys performing internationally as a chamber musician and chamber orchestra principal.
Most at home in chamber music, Sijie has collaborated with artists including Nicola Benedetti, Roderick Williams, Alina Ibragimova and many other wonderful musicians and friends; at the Edinburgh International Festival, Prussia Cove Open Chamber Music, Roman River Festival and other festivals worldwide. She leads the Bloomsbury Players and is the Founder and Artistic Director of Vermeer Chamber Concerts.
Sijie is the co-leader of the London Mozart Players. She guests with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Aurora Orchestra, and on period instruments with the Academy of Ancient Music, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and La Nuova Musica.
Hannah Shaw
Hannah Shaw graduated from Juilliard and has lived in the USA, the Netherlands and Edinburgh, before relocating to London. She is a member of the Bloomsbury Players and enjoys playing baroque and classical viola with Arcangelo, the Irish Baroque Orchestra, the Mozartists, Le Foyer des Artistes, and Anima Eterna Brugge; and she also regularly performs as a guest in a various chamber orchestras, including O/Modernt, 12 Ensemble, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, London Mozart Players, and the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra.
An avid knitter, you can often spot Hannah sporting a pair of self-made socks. An equally avid but less experienced amateur instrument maker, she is also currently making her first instrument, a baroque viola. She loves hiking in the Appalachian Mountains of her native South Carolina.
Christopher Graves
Christopher Graves is a cellist and bow maker. For ten years until 2022 he was the cellist of the Castalian String Quartet, with whom he played frequently at major music venues and festivals all over the world - Wigmore Hall, Carnegie Hall, Konzerthaus Vienna, Berlin Philharmonie, Hamburg Elbphilharmonie, Philharmonie de Paris, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Aldeburgh Festival and many others, as well as extensive tours of the US. The quartet released critically acclaimed recordings including their album “Between Two Worlds” of Ades and Beethoven, which was given a double five-star review and named Album of the Month by BBC Music Magazine. They won a Royal Philharmonic society award, the Merito String Quartet Award, and a Borletti Buitoni Trust Fellowship, in addition to prizes at the Lyon and Banff international chamber music competitions, and were appointed Hans Keller String Quartet in Residence at Oxford University. Christopher has given masterclasses in chamber music at the Royal College of Music, Guildhall, Yehudi Menuhin School, Chethams, Birmingham Conservatoire, and several other institutions.
Aside from his quartet activities, Christopher has performed widely as a chamber musician, recitalist and orchestral player. His cello teachers were Melissa Phelps and Johannes Goritzki.
Alongside his ongoing activities as a cellist, Christopher has in recent years become one of the UK’s most sought-after bow makers. His bows, made entirely by hand and informed by his first-hand knowledge of the demands of the string repertoire, are played by fine musicians around the world. He studied bow making with Gary Leahy in 2020.