Examiner.com: BluePrint’s total immersion in the music of Philippe Hersant
Examiner.comNovember 20, 2011
Stephen Smoliar, SF Classical Music Examiner
Last night’s BluePrint project concert at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music consisted entirely of compositions by the Parisian composer Philippe Hersant, six works in all, three on either side of the intermission. Given how little exposure Hersant has received in the United States, this was a bold move on the part of Artistic Director Nicole Paiement. However, Hersant emerged as a composer with an accessible and engaging style, along with considerable diversity in his stylistic approaches. Thus, as introductions go, one could not have hoped for a better offering. read more »
Examiner.com: The Cypress String Quartet’s ‘American Album’
Examiner.com
11/16/2011
by Stephen Smoliar, Classical Music Examiner
Buy the Album
Last week saw the release by the Cypress String Quartet (violins Cecily Ward and Tom Stone, viola Ethan Filner, and cello Jennifer Kloetzel) of their latest CD on their own label. The recording is entitled The American Album; and it provides three markedly different perspectives on what we might call “American” music from three decidedly different eras of our country’s history. What makes those perspectives interesting, however, is that each of them has its own form of European connection. read more »
SF Chronicle: CD Review – Cypress String Quartet
San Francisco Chronicle
Thursday, November 3, 2011
by Joshua Kosman
Cypress Performing Arts Assoc. 
Thematic programming is a fine thing, but sometimes it's also OK to simply toss coherence out the nearest window. The latest self-produced CD from the Bay Area's stalwart Cypress String Quartet, billed as "The American Album," begins with a fine matched pair of works on American Indian themes. One, naturally, is Dvorák's "American" Quartet, which draws on a range of melodic material the composer assembled during his stay in this country; the other is the lesser-known but evocative "Two Sketches Based on Indian Themes" by Charles Tomlinson Griffes. read more »
NET Radio: American Album is November 2011 Hot Pick
NET Radio
November 2011
Antonin DVORAK: “American” String Quartet No. 12 in F Op. 96; Charles Tomlinson GRIFFES: Two Sketches Based on Indian Themes; Samuel BARBER: String Quartet in b Op. 11
The Cypress String Quartet celebrates 15 years of great music-making in 2011-2012, and this new CD is certainly a gift to music lovers everywhere. Adopting an American 'can-do' spirit, the Cypress has released the album on its own label, and features composers who were inspired by a similar spirit of seeking a new, uniquely American sound for their own succeeding generations. The performances are outstanding - as usual - from these former Meadowlark Music Festival musicians. read more »
SF Classical Voice: All American, Proud of It
San Francisco Classical Voice
9/20/11
by Benjamin Frandzel
For its newest CD, San Francisco's Cypress String Quartet has turned to an epoch in which the notion of a genuinely American sensibility in concert music was the subject of much debate and aspiration. The three works on The American Album, released on the quartet's own label, reveal various approaches to this challenge in successive generations. The program is enlightening as it explores the evolution of American — or, in one case, American-inspired — composition, and the performances are as fine as any you're likely to hear. read more »
Midwest Record: CYPRESS STRING QUARTET / The American Album
Midwest Record09/17/11
Volume 34/Number 319
We asked one of our fave classical music tourists what they thought of this album and they were completely knocked out. Not knowing much about classical music but knowing what they like, they were blown away by the classy playing of this string quartet and they were blown away by the quality and presentation of the material. read more »
Cape Code Times: Chorale, quartet make beautiful music together
Cape Cod Times
August 10, 2011
by Keith Powers, Contributing Writer
CHATHAM – In an unusual mix of sacred and secular, the Cape Cod Chamber Music Festival continued its run Sunday afternoon at First Congregational Church of Chatham. The Cypress String Quartet joined forces with the Chatham Chorale, directed by Joseph Marchio, in works by Purcell, Dvorak, Randall Thompson and Schubert. read more »
Lucid Culture: Dancing Late with the Cypress String Quartet’s Elena Ruehr Album
Lucid Culture
January 21, 2011
By Alan Young
In the spirit of spreading the word about releases that slipped under our radar when they initially appeared, here's one from last year. The Cypress String Quartet discovered composer Elena Ruehr's work by listening to an unlabeled recording. Eight years later, they finally consummated their affinity for her compositions, and have captured that passion in an album. The Quartet's next-to-most-recent cd How She Danced: String Quartets of Elena Ruehr could not be more aptly titled. Throughout her First, Third and Fourth String Quartets, rhythm is everywhere: sometimes jaunty, often incredibly tricky, occasionally outright aggressive. The three quartets here, (Nos. 1, 3 and 4), performed in reverse chronological order here, are extraordinarily melodic, with tinges of Afrobeat, and Irish dances alternating with modernist astringencies and enticing consonance. read more »
ArtsSF: Responding to Debussy, and a Reduz Influx
artssf.com: the independent observer of San Francisco Bay Area music and dance
Week of Jan. 16-23, 2011 - Vol. 13, No. 53
By Paul Hertelendy
Cypress String Quartet Links the New with the Old
SARATOGA---A Debussy-Higdon chamber program drew an unexpected full house at Villa Montalvo on a foggy holiday weekend, leaving ushers scurrying about setting up extra chairs to handle the influx. This was a true redux influx as the Cypress Quartet played a return engagement. read more »
The Big City: Lions In Winter
The Big CityDecember 12, 2010
by George Grella
...Of course, the great example of late style in the arts is Beethoven... To explore that mystery, listen to the Tokyo Quartet's set of the late quartets, and also to the first two volumes of the Cypress String Quartet's recordings of the late quartets. Both groups of recordings are at the highest level, and they are quite different from each other. read more »
Lucid Culture: The Cypress String Quartet Play Debussy, Higdon and Schulhoff with Soul and Sensitivity
Lucid Culture
November 16, 2010
Thursday night at the New School's Tenri Institute, Cypress String Quartet violinist Cecily Ward explained that the Debussy String Quartet was the first piece the ensemble had played together. That was 1996. Fourteen years later, the group still finds bliss in it. read more »
Fanfare: Beethoven String Quartet No. 13 in B, Alternate Finale
Fanfare
November/December 2010
by Jerry Dubins
When the Cypress Quartet's first volume in the start of a new Beethoven cycle came to me for review in Fanfare 33:2, I had yet to make acquaintance with this San Francisco-based ensemble. After repeated listening to the disc. which contained the C#-Minor. op. 131. and F Major, op. 135. quartets, I reported that "the technical resources of this ensemble are awesome, and the communicative expressiveness the players achieve, individually and collectively, through articulation of dynamics and modulation of vibrato and bow pressure are breathtaking." I concluded by advising readers to buy the CD and spend time, quoting John Amis, "getting in touch with some higher state of being." read more »
The Big City: Cypress plays Beethoven at Tenri, NYC
The Big City Blog
November 15, 2010
by George Grella
Fine concert from the Cypress String Quartet last night at Tenri. They represented their two CDs (one more on the way) of the late Beethoven Quartets with performances of the F Major, Op. 135 and B Flat Major, Op. 130, with the Grosse Fugue finale, quartets. They play wonderfully the interpretive choices they make are completely convincing; the relaxed tempo to open Op. 135, the precise and confident playing of the tricky rhythms in the Vivace movement, unsentimental slow movements, a very powerful feeling of crisis and resolution in the finale. read more »
American Record Guide: Beethoven Quartet 13 & Grosse Fuge
American Record Guide
November/December 2010
by William Bender
Cypress 6749-60:26 (912 Cole St Apt 137, San Francisco CA 94117)
Quartets 12-16; Grosse Fuge
La Salle Quartet
Brilliant 94064 [3CD] 196 minutes
The Cypress is Volume 2 of what so far is a highly commendable set of the late quartets of Beethoven. Volume 1 containing Quartets 14 and 16 was released in 2009 to a warm welcome by Paul Althouse (Nov/Dec 2009), who thought the group's sound "uncommonly fine: rich and beautifully balanced" and called the album "an impressive start to the series". I share his enthusiasm. read more »
Metro Pulse: KSO Finds Room for Innovation in Gershwin’s Best-Known Works
Metro Pulse
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
by Alan Sherrod
One of the unfortunate, gaping holes in the Knoxville-area classical music scene is the dearth of appearances by notable ensembles with national reputations. Thankfully, the Oak Ridge Civic Music Association has the means and the willingness to help correct that deficiency, albeit for an Oak Ridge audience. Last weekend, their Chamber Series brought the marvelous Cypress String Quartet, a San Francisco-based ensemble, to Oak Ridge for a concert of works by Glazunov and Beethoven, along with a newly commissioned work, Bel Canto, by Elena Ruehr. This 15-year-old ensemble, consisting of violinists Cecily Ward and Tom Stone, violist Ethan Filner, and cellist Jennifer Kloetzel, is clearly dedicated to exquisite music-making and to opening up the string quartet repertoire to new works. read more »