Ulysses Quartet at Jorgensen Center

The Ulysses Quartet has been praised for their “textural versatility,” “grave beauty” and “the kind of chemistry many quartets long for, but rarely achieve” (The Strad), as well as their “avid enthusiasm ... delivered with a blend of exuberance and polished artistry” (The Buffalo News). Founded in the summer of 2015, the group won the grand prize and gold medal in the senior string division of the 2016 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition and first prize in the 2018 Schoenfeld International String Competition. The evening’s program celebrates artistic inspiration and friendship, featuring works by Dmitri Shostakovich and Mieczyslaw Weinberg, who were contemporaries and friends who harbored a mutual respect and shared their work with each other, enriching each of their personal styles. Anna Clyne’s Breathing Statues builds on ideas and quotations from Beethoven’s Op. 130 and Op. 135, creating a musical conversation between the past and present day.