Sept. 4, 2001

Music Department Sets Stage
for Cool Quartet

Coolidge Quartet’s Three-Year Residency Program Boosts GW Concert Scene

By Nicholina Ferramosca

In 1997 four musicians from four different parts of the world came together to create music that would be innovative and award winning. Named in honor of arts patron Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, the Coolidge Quartet formed with the guidance of the Emerson Quartet at the Hartt School of Music in Connecticut.

Now, GW has landed this acclaimed ensemble by creating a three-year residency program. The residency will include evening concerts at GW’s Mount Vernon Campus Hand Chapel, lunchtime concerts on the Foggy Bottom campus, master classes, and educational outreach to local schools. The Quartet just completed a three-year Guarneri Fellowship program at the University of Maryland and has traveled throughout the world participating in festivals and working with world famous composers.

The Quartet has performed in Europe, Israel, Hong Kong, Australia, Guatemala, and throughout the United States in concert series and festivals such as the Aspen Music Festival, Summerfest La Jolla, the MIT Guest Artists Series, and with the Carolina Chamber Players and the 20th Century Consort of Washington. In 1998, The Coolidge Quartet won prizes at both the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition and the Chamber Music Yellow Springs Competition. The quartet also was invited by world-renowned violinist Isaac Stern to participate in the Third International Jerusalem Chamber Music Encounters. Their debut CD was released in 1999 on the Classico Label (Olufsen Records).

The four members of the quartet include Amy Leung, cello, who was born in San Francisco and grew up in New Jersey. She earned her bachelor of music degree from the New England Conservatory and her doctor of musical arts from the University of Maryland. She has performed throughout the United States and Europe, and was winner of the 1994 Kranichsteiner Interpretation Prize at the International Institute for New Music in Darmstadt, Germany. Hasse Borup, violin, earned his DMA from the University of Maryland, GPD from the Hartt School, and also is a graduate of the Royal Danish Academy of Music. He was recipient of the International Yamaha Prize in 1992 and was an award-winner in the Danish Radio Young Musicians Competition. He has toured Europe as soloist and concertmaster with the Copenhagen String Orchestra and acted as co-producer for its CD of works by Nielsen and Grieg. Hasse serves on the faculty of Montgomery College.

The second violinist is Se-Yun Lee who grew up in Boston, MA and received her bachelor of arts degree from Yale University and her master of music degree from the New England Conservatory (NEC). A devoted teacher, she has served on the faculty of NEC and also on the faculty of the Hartt School Community Division. The last of the members is Paul Reynolds, viola, who grew up in Albuquerque, NM, and received his bachelor of music degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music and his master of music degree from Rice University. He has performed with the Santa Fe Opera and more recently was a member of the New World Symphony where he was invited to appear as a soloist with the orchestra. As a soloist and chamber musician, he has toured throughout North America and Europe.

 

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