The Thalea String Quartet joins young virtuoso cellist Sterling Elliott in performances and programs featuring works for string quintet. In addition to Schubert’s monumental Cello Quintet, they will also be exploring brand new works alongside hidden gems of the quintet repertoire. 

This exciting collaboration follows a successful joint educational and community engagement residency with Chamber Music Tulsa earlier this year. The quartet performed for thousands of school children, offered community concerts at facilities serving those experiencing homelessness, and performed public concerts at Tulsa’s Downtown Library and the Philbrook Museum of Art. The quartet also gave the live premiere of Anthony R. Green’s Sacred Ground, a work commissioned by Chamber Music Tulsa to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre.

Program Offerings

LANDSCAPES 

Tanya Tagaq – Sivunittinni (arr. Jacob Garchik and TSQ) 

Fjóla Evans – Moss 

- intermission -

Gabriella Smith – Porcupine Wash 

LANDSCAPES evokes the soundscapes of the natural world. Listeners will hear the ice creaking beneath their feet in the frozen tundra of Northern Canada. They will be transported to moss-covered lava fields in Iceland and hear the wind whistling through the needles of California cacti. The Thalea String Quartet is thrilled to be joined by superstar cellist Sterling Elliott in a new arrangement of a work by Tanya Tagaq and Fjóla Evans' stirring cello quintet Moss. These expansive works will be paired with Gabriella Smith's rarely performed string quartet, Porcupine Wash. 

From Vienna to the Tundra

Tanya Tagaq – Sivunittinni (arr. Jacob Garchik and TSQ) 

Franz Schubert – String Quintet in C major, D. 956

This program pairs Schubert's sublime String Quintet with a new string quintet arrangement of Tanya Tagaq's riveting Sivunittinni. Each work explores vast emotional depths and creates a beautiful sense of timelessness, allowing the listener to bask in the glorious resonance of two cellos!

Biographies

Thalea String Quartet

Sterling Elliott

Acclaimed for his stellar stage presence and joyous musicianship, cellist Sterling Elliott is a 2021 Avery Fisher Career Grant recipient and the winner of the Senior Division of the 2019 National Sphinx Competition. Already in his young career, he has appeared with such major orchestras as the Philadelphia Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. This summer, he made his Aspen Festival debut, performing the Brahms Double Concerto with Gil Shaham, and he made his German debut in Munich in May 2022.

The 2022-2023 season will see his debuts with the Colorado Symphony, Cincinnati Symphony, North Carolina Symphony, and Ft. Worth Symphony, among others, with return appearances including the Buffalo Philharmonic. He will appear in recital under the auspices of the San Francisco Symphony, the New York Philharmonic, Shriver Hall in Baltimore, the Tippett Rise Festival, and Capitol Region Classical in Albany, NY. In October he participates in the Caramoor Music Festival’s prestigious EvninRising Stars series, a weeklong program of coaching and chamber music culminating in a performance in Katonah, NY.
*Sterling Elliott is represented by Colbert Artists Management Inc.