Ying Quartet and Flutist Linda Chesis Will Close CSMF's 28th Season
The performance will take place on Monday, August 17, 2026 at 7:00 PM.
The Grammy-winning Ying Quartet will return to the Cooperstown Summer Music Festival for the closing concert of its 28th season, joined by flutist and CSMF Artistic Director Linda Chesis. The Aug. 17 program spans 250 years of chamber music with works by Joseph Haydn, David Ludwig and Antonín Dvořák.
Ensemble-in-residence at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, N.Y., the Ying Quartet has earned an international reputation for combining expressive performances with a fearlessly imaginative approach to chamber music. The Los Angeles Times called the quartet's playing "chamber music of astonishing, refreshing exaltation and exhilaration."
The quartet opens with one of Haydn's Op. 20 string quartets, followed by David Ludwig's Canzoniere, featuring flutist and CSMF Artistic Director Linda Chesis. Inspired by a Renaissance madrigal by Claudio Monteverdi based on a 14th-century Petrarchan sonnet about unrequited love, Canzoniere creates an evocative musical landscape for flute and strings. The evening concludes with Dvořák's String Quartet No. 12 in F Major, Op. 96, popularly known as the "American."
An intriguing historical connection ties the evening's final work to the Ying Quartet's own beginnings. Dvořák composed the "American" Quartet during his 1893 residency in Spillville, Iowa. A century later, the Ying Quartet launched its career through a two-year National Endowment for the Arts residency in the farming community of Jesup, Iowa, about an hour from Spillville—an experience that has shaped the ensemble's community-minded approach to chamber music ever since.
This will be the Ying Quartet's third appearance at the Cooperstown Summer Music Festival. Violist Phillip Ying also performed frequently during the festival's early years. "It is terrific to see how the Festival has thrived and contributed to the community in so many ways," Ying said. "I have always been impressed by the consistently world-class artistic quality that Artistic Director Linda Chesis presents, the warm and enthusiastic audiences, and the beautiful surroundings."
Chesis added that the experience of hearing a live string quartet requires no prior musical knowledge. "It's like a spectator sport," she said. "You don't need to know the rules of the game to enjoy it."
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