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 Offering:

Schubert, Interpolated

Henry Purcell - Fantasy on One Note

Franz Schubert - String Quintet in C major, Op. 163, D. 956: i. Allegro ma non troppo 

Tanya Tagaq - Sivunittinni (arr. by Jacob Garchik and the Thalea String Quartet)

Franz Schubert - String Quintet in C major, Op. 163, D. 956: ii. Adagio

- intermission -

Paul Wiancko - Only Ever Us

Franz Schubert - String Quintet in C major, Op. 163, D. 956: iii. Scherzo. Presto - Trio. Andante sostenuto.

Franz Schubert - String Quintet in C major, Op. 163, D. 956: iv. Allegretto

The Thalea String Quartet teams up with virtuoso cellist Sterling Elliott in a one-of-a-kind collaborative performance that presents Schubert’s timeless Cello Quintet as you’ve never heard it before!

This program re-examines Schubert’s classic by pairing the work with string quintet repertoire that spans 350 years. Each movement of Schubert’s quintet is paired with a unique string quintet work that travels across time, tradition, and musical language..These interpolations, including music by Tanya Tagaq, Purcell, and Paul Wiancko, re-contextualize Schubert’s timeless classic, shining new light on the work’s timbres, textures, and emotional depth.

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.