Dover Quartet Workshop (Balourdet Quartet, Erinys Quartet, Partridge Quartet)

The Balourdet Quartet, based in Boston, Massachusetts, is currently in residence at the New England Conservatory’s Professional String Quartet Program. The quartet received the Grand Prize at the 2021 Concert Artists Guild Victor Elmaleh Competition as well as the top prize awarded in the 2021 Premio Paolo Borciani in Reggio Emilia, Italy. The group also received the Gold Medal in the 2020 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition and the 2021 Chamber Music Yellow Springs Competition.

Highlights of the Balourdet’s 2022-23 season include appearances at Chamber Music Detroit, the Grand Piano Series in Naples, FL, NEC’s Jordan Hall, Tuesday Matinees at Merkin Hall, and Wigmore Hall. This summer, the group will also perform at the Oklahoma Mozart Festival, Music Mountain, and Bravo! Vail as well as a residency teaching and performing at the Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival. The quartet is thrilled to premiere a new commissioned work by Karim Al-Zand during the 2022-2023 season, made possible through Chamber Music America’s Classical Commissioning Grant.

The Balourdet has performed at festivals and series including Amelia Island Chamber Music Festival, the Aspen Music Festival, Chigiana, La Jolla Music Society Summerfest, Montgomery Chamber Music, Santa Fe ProMusica, and the Schneider Concert Series. It works primarily with Paul Katz at the New England Conservatory, as well as Miriam Fried and members of the Cleveland and Borromeo Quartets. The quartet was formed in 2018 at Rice University in Houston, Texas under the tutelage of James Dunham, Norman Fischer, and Cho-Liang Lin.

The Balourdet Quartet gets its name from Antoine Balourdet, chef extraordinaire at the Hotel St. Bernard and beloved member of the Taos School of Music community.

Learn more about the Balourdet Quartet.

Named for the Erinyes (a.k.a. the Furies) from the Greek tragedy Oresteia by Aeschylus, and with roots in Estonia, Lithuania, Greece, the United States, and Finland, the Erinys Quartet was founded in 2018 at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, where they worked closely with cellist Marko Ylönen. Since the autumn of 2023, they have been the Nina von Maltzahn String Quartet-in-Residence at the Curtis Institute of Music.

In the 2024-25 season, the Erinys Quartet performs throughout Europe and the United States, with concerts in Greece, Hungary, Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia, Florida, Minnesota, Colorado, New Mexico, and California. They have also been featured in festivals and concert series such as the Mimir Chamber Music Festival in Fort Worth, Texas, Festival Groba in Ponteareas, Spain, the inaugural Dover Quartet Workshop at the Curtis Institute, as well as the Professional String Quartet Seminar with the Pacifica Quartet and Atar Arad (Cleveland Quartet) at Indiana University.

Since 2021, the Erinys Quartet has been supported by Le Dimore del Quartetto, where they are also a part of the European Union-sponsored MERITA platform. In addition to their studies at the Curtis Institute, the members of the Erinys Quartet are pursuing a diploma in chamber music at Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía in Madrid, Spain, under the tutelage of Günter Pichler (Alban Berg Quartett).

In 2023, the Erinys Quartet was awarded the Audience Prize Award of the City of Bad Tölz during the Bad Tölz International String Quartet Competition, the Esterházy Foundation Special Prize for best interpretation of a Haydn string quartet and were awarded the Bronze Medal Prize in the 2024 Fischoff Competition.

Learn more about the Erinys Quartet.

As Musica Viva Australia’s 2020-22 Futuremaker artists, the award-winning Partridge String Quartet are fast becoming a force in the Australian classical music scene. Brilliant and dynamic chamber musicians, the quartet strives to connect and surprise audiences through their bold performances and creative collaborations which have been featured on ABC Classic, Violin Channel, CutCommon, and Limelight Magazines.

Formed at the Australian National Academy of Music, the quartet received national recognition as first-prize winners of the inaugural Queensland International Chamber Music Competition (2019) and ANAM Chamber Music Competition (2018). In 2018, the quartet were recipients of the Husky Energy Artist Award after they were selected for an international string quartet program residency at the Banff Centre of Arts and Creativity in Canada where they were mentored by the JACK Quartet, Eybler Quartet, Parker Quartet, and Paul Wiancko. Throughout their studies, the quartet received tutelage and mentoring from the music faculty of ANAM, Australian String Quartet, Borodin String Quartet, Trio Dali, and Alban Berg Quartet. The quartet performed at the Melbourne Recital Centre as part of Musica Viva’s 2022 National Concert Season and are recipients of the AYO Ernest Llewellyn Memorial Trust Fund Travel Award.

Passionate advocates of Australian composers, Partridge performed a complete five string quartet cycle by Richard Mills AM and were recipients of the Musica Viva Chamber Music Prize for their performance of Paul Stanhope’s Second Quartet. They have presented collections of Australian works at the MPavilion, National Gallery of Victoria, Ian Potter Centre, National Film and Sound Archive Theatre in Canberra, and are engaged in exciting projects and music festivals around Australia.

Learn more about the Partridge String Quartet.