SF Classical Voice: Ruehr’s Novel ‘Response’ to Cypress’ ‘Call’
San Francisco Classical Voice
February 26, 2010
By Jeff Kaliss
For its "Call & Response" program this year, San Francisco's Cypress String Quartet is returning to a composer friend whom they'd commissioned earlier in the program's 11-year history. That's Elena Ruehr, who came out from Boston last month to work with the ensemble on her String Quartet No. 5, premiering at the end of February at Herbst Theatre. Mutual admiration is tangible between Ruehr and Cypress cellist Jennifer Kloetzel as they talk about their extended collaboration, begun with the composer's String Quartet No. 4, written for "Call & Response" in 2005. read more »
Sequenza21.com: How She Danced: String Quartets of Elena Ruehr
Sequenza21.com
February 2010
by Phil Muse
"I was enchanted with this, my first acquaintance with the music of American composer Elena Ruehr, and I think you will be, too. A strong, engaging personality suffuses her music. She was born and spent her early years in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, an area of much natural beauty that is said to have the most beautiful fall colors in America. read more »
Examiner.com: The Cypress String Quartet’s encouragement of contemporary composers
Examiner.com
February 10, 2010
by Stephen Smoliar
Recognizing that every new composition emerges from some collection of past influences, the Cypress String Quartet launched a project they named Call & Response, under which they commission a composer to "respond" to some set of influences that they have "called." One composer with whom they have worked successfully in Elena Ruehr, whose fourth string quartet is a response to a call to consider the relationship between Ludwig van Beethoven's Opus 59, Number 3 "Razumovsky" quartet and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's K. 465 "Dissonant" quartet. At the level of surface features, Ruehr's response may not have extended very far beyond a decision to follow the same structure of movements that one finds in the Beethoven quartet; but she has been quoted as saying, "The surface is simple, but the structure is complex." read more »
Classical Voice of New England: Cypress Quartet Shines in Multifaceted Repertoire
Classical Voice of New England
February 2010
By Patrick Valentino
When a talented and sensitive composer joins with a virtuosic and amiable group of musicians, the results can be magical. Especially if, as is the case with the Cypress String Quartet performing the works of Elena Ruehr, that collaboration takes place on the grounds of friendship, familiarity, and unity of vision. One of the San Francisco based Cypress Quartet's hallmarks is their dedication not only to each other but the composers they champion; they have worked extensively with Ruehr and it shows in their masterful renditions of her varied and multifaceted work. read more »
Strings Magazine: How to Match Instruments in a Chamber Group
Strings
February 2010
by Patrick Sullivan
When a Strad just isn't good enough. The pleasures and perils of adding a new instrument to a quartet
They are legendary instruments—four splendid Strads once owned by Italy's most celebrated virtuoso and played together for decades by one of America's most acclaimed string quartets. But when the Paganini quartet was loaned to cellist Paul Katz and his companions in the Cleveland Quartet, the instruments' new custodians found themselves in a quandary. read more »
Allmusic.com: How She Danced: String Quartets of Elena Ruehr
Allmusic.com
February 2010
by Uncle Dave Lewis
Composer Elena Ruehr has roots in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and studied with William Bolcom at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor; the release of the Cypress String Quartet's How She Danced: String Quartets of Elena Ruehr finds Ruehr as a professor in the music department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Although not all of her four string quartets were written for it, Cypress String Quartet has enjoyed a long association with Ruehr going back at least to 1996, which is recapped to some extent in the engaging interview format booklet notes, led by Saint Paul Sunday Morning host Bill McGlaughlin and involving both the composer and all four members of Cypress. read more »
SJ Mercury News: Cypress Quartet and San Jose Chamber Orchestra unveil compelling new work by Pablo Furman
San Jose Mercury-News
January 11, 2010
By Richard Scheinin
Pablo Furman's new concerto for string quartet and chamber orchestra is titled "Paso del Fuego," which means "Passage of Fire." It is an apt title. To hear this piece is to be carried along a road of blazing colors, through rugged terrain that's virtually sandblasted by rhythm and topped with melodies speaking of beautiful doom. It grabs the gut. It fascinates. It should be performed far and wide.
Furman, a longtime music professor at San Jose State University, has composed an important new work, one of the best I've heard anywhere over the past several seasons. It received its world premiere Saturday at Le Petit Trianon from the Cypress String Quartet (the "soloists" for the concerto) and the San Jose Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Barbara Day Turner. The performers, like the music, were on fire.
An excellent essay about the 35-minute piece by trumpeter and new-music aficionado Stephen Ruppenthal provides important background, spelling out Furman's compositional techniques, dating as far back as the 15th century. But sometimes music speaks on an intuitive level: Listening to "Paso del Fuego," one simply knows that every choice of note, chord and effect has been carefully and rightly made by a composer who is in steady control of his craft.
read more »SF Classical Voice: Shaking Hands With the Past
San Francisco Classical Voice
January 10, 2010
by David Bratman
Sunday was string quartet night at the San José Chamber Orchestra's concert, conducted by Barbara Day Turner, at Le Petit Trianon in its namesake city. The Cypress String Quartet played as guest soloists in the premiere of Pablo Furman's Paso del Fuego, and the SJCO ceded the entire stage to the Cypress foursome for the first half of the concert, which consisted of Beethoven's Quartet in F, Op. 135. read more »
Albuqurque Journal: Best music of ’09, never mind the genre (incl.Beethoven Vol.1)
Albuquerque Journal
Friday, January 8, 2010
by David Steinberg, Journal Staff Writer
Here is my list of the best CDs of 2009:
"Beethoven Late Quartets" (Opus 131 and Opus 135), Cypress String Quartet. You take your pick of recordings of string quartets playing these well-traveled pieces but the Cypress injects, such exuberance in its playing that if Beethoven were alive today, and had his hearing, he'd stand up to applaud. read more »
SJ Mercury News: Composer, Quartet ‘respond’ to Bartok
San Jose Mercury News
April 19, 2008
By Richard Scheinin
Montalvo concert exudes heat, energy, even danger
Composer Kurt Rohde has written his first string quartet. He calls it “Gravities,” and it gives the impression of elemental Earth forces at work, sucking together his musical materials, tightly binding them in a dark place, then blasting them apart and back toward the light. It feels mysterious and a little dangerous: The music teems with energy and keeps threatening to explode in your face. read more »
SF Classical Voice: Call & Response & Awesome Kids
San Francisco Classical Voice
March 18, 2008
By Janos Gereben
I’m glad to have the collaborative testimony of Classical Voice colleague Jeff Dunn in his review of the Cypress Quartet’s “Call & Response” concert at Yerba Buena Center on Saturday, because I still find it difficult to believe what happened there. read more »
SF Classical Voice: Miracle on Third Street
San Francisco Classical Voice
March 15, 2008
By Jeff Dunn
Cypress String Quartet – Miracle on Third Street
I had to pinch myself.
Nearly 200 schoolchildren at a string quartet concert listening to Bartók, and they’re quieter than an equal number of old fogies like myself? Am I dreaming? Or did the Cypress String Quartet do mass hypnosis at the 19 schools it visited in the last three weeks before coming here to the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts? read more »
SF Chronicle: The Cypress pairs Tsontakis with Beethoven – SFGate
San Francisco Chronicle
May 01, 2006
Joshua Kosman, Chronicle Music Critic
A few years back, the members of the Cypress String Quartet hatched the splendid idea of pairing a work from the standard repertoire with a commissioned piece specifically inspired by it.
Since then, the "Call and Response" series has spawned new work from such composers as Benjamin Lees and Jennifer Higdon, and Friday's concert at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts brought the world premiere of a luscious, moody quartet by George Tsontakis. read more »