Calidore String Quartet

JEFFREY MYERS, VIOLIN
Jeffrey Myers, first violinist of the Calidore String Quartet, makes his home in New York City. His chamber music career with the award winning Calidore String Quartet has established an international reputation for its informed, polished, and passionate performances. The quartet won the $100,000 Grand Prize at the inaugural 2016 M-Prize International Chamber Music Competition along with grand prizes in the Fischoff, Coleman, Chesapeake, and Yellow Springs competitions and captured top prizes at the 2012 ARD Munich International String Quartet Competition, and Hamburg International Chamber Music Competition. The CSQ is a recipient of a 2018 Avery Fisher Career Grant and a 2017 Lincoln Center Emerging Artist Award. The quartet was the first North American ensemble to win the Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship, was a BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist, and is currently in residence with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Bowers Program.

As a soloist, Jeffrey has performed with the Bellingham Festival Orchestra, the Columbus Symphony Orchestra, the National Repertory Orchestra, as well as the Colburn Orchestra. He has served as guest concertmaster of the Houston Symphony Orchestra and has also served as concertmaster of the National Repertory Orchestra, and the Colburn Orchestra. Jeffrey has collaborated with such artists as Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Marc-André Hamelin, Menahem Pressler, as well as the Ebène, and Emerson String Quartets. Festival appearances include the Aspen Music Festival, Banff Centre, BBC Proms, Music@Menlo, Ravinia, and Verbier Festival. Jeffrey is currently the Artistic Director of the Columbus, Ohio based chamber music recital series, Sunday at Central.

Born in Columbus, Ohio to music educators, Jeffrey began playing the violin at the age of five. As a graduate of the Colburn Conservatory of Music, he studied with renowned pedagogue Robert Lipsett.  His other teachers and mentors include Paul Kantor, Michelle Kim, Arnold Steinhart, and Mary Irwin. Committed to sharing his passion for music, Jeffrey is currently an associate professor of music at the University of Delaware.

Jeffrey plays on a rare Italian violin made by Francesco Rugeri in Cremona c1680, owned by a private benefactor and on loan through the Leonhard Fellowship with strings kindly sponsored by Thomastik-Infeld, Vienna.

RYAN MEEHAN, VIOLIN
Violinist Ryan Meehan has been hailed for his “singing tone” (New York Times) and his “remarkably polished and sophisticated playing” (Chicago Tribune). As a member of the Calidore String Quartet he is a recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant, a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship, Lincoln Center Emerging Artist Award, BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist and is a member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Season 22/23 concert highlights include the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the Kennedy Center, Wigmore Hall and the Rudolfinium Prague as well as an international tour with violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter as part of her Virtuosi ensemble. Ryan regularly performs in venues such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Berlin Konzerthaus, Cologne Philharmonie, Seoul’s Kumho Arts Hall and at festivals, including the BBC Proms, Verbier, Ravinia, Mostly Mozart, Music@Menlo, Rheingau and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. With the Calidore, he has released six commercial recordings including an upcoming release of the late Beethoven String Quartets in February 2023.

As a soloist, Ryan has garnered top prizes in competitions, including the Washington International Competition, ASTA National Solo Competition, Artists’ Series of Sarasota, Pasadena Showcase for the Arts Instrumental Competition and NFAA Young Arts. He has performed as soloist with the Colburn Orchestra and the Bellingham Festival Orchestra and played recitals throughout the United States and Europe. As a chamber musician, he won grand prizes at the M-Prize, Coleman, Chesapeake, St. Paul and Rembrandt chamber music competitions, as well as prizes at the ARD Munich, Hamburg and Fischoff competitions. He has collaborated with such esteemed musicians as Anne-Sophie Mutter, Menahem Pressler, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Anthony McGill, Lawrence Power and members of the Emerson, St. Lawrence and Ebène String Quartets.

Ryan serves on the faculty of the University Of Delaware School of Music as Associate Professor of Violin and co-directs the UD Fellowship Quartet Program. He also serves as the String Chamber Music Director at the University of Michigan School of Music, Theater and Dance. Previously, he served as artist-in-residence at the University of Toronto. In response to the 2020 summer festival cancellations caused by the Covid-19 epidemic, Ryan co-founded the Virtuosi Virtual Summer Academy (VVSA), which connected a diverse group of violinists and pianists with the world’s leading soloists, chamber and orchestral musicians.

A dedicated teacher, Ryan's Violin students have won top prizes in national and international violin competitions such as the Cooper and Sphinx Competitions (Grand Prize). They have been invited to prestigious summer festivals such as the Verbier Festival Academy, Perlman Music Program and Music@Menlo, performed as soloist with numerous orchestras and have been accepted on full scholarships to prestigious musical institutions, such as the Colburn School, Indiana University, Hochschule für Musik in Munich. He is a graduate of the Colburn School Conservatory of Music in Los Angeles and the Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía in Madrid. His teachers include Almita and Roland Vamos, Robert Lipsett, Arnold Steinhardt, Julia Fischer, Günther Pichler and Amy Schwartz Moretti. He plays a violin by Vincenzo Panormo c. 1775 and is sponsored generously by Thomastik-Infeld, Vienna.

JEREMY BERRY, VIOLA
In 2014 Jeremy Berry graduated from the Colburn Conservatory of Music where he received a Professional Studies Certificate and an Artist Diploma studying with Paul Coletti. Jeremy also holds a Bachelor of Music degree from The Juilliard School, where he studied with Heidi Castleman and Misha Amory. Solo experiences include a concerto performance with the American Youth Symphony and the Bellingham Festival of Music as well as receiving first place in The Marrowstone Music Festival Concerto Competition. Jeremy has participated in a variety of summer festivals, including the Perlman Music Program, The Aspen Music Festival and School, The Verbier Academy, Kneisel Hall, Youth Orchestra of the Americas, and the Sarasota Music Festival. Jeremy was born in Bellingham, Washington and began his viola studies with Elizabeth Stuen-Walker at the age of 5.

ESTELLE CHOI, CELLO
Born and raised in Calgary, Alberta, cellist Estelle Choi has garnered top prizes as a soloist and as a chamber musician. She has gained international recognition as a founding member of the Calidore String Quartet, an ensemble that celebrated its tenth anniversary in 2020. Praised by the New York Times for its “deep reserves of virtuosity and irrepressible dramatic instinct” the Calidore won the Grand-Prize of the 2016 M-Prize International Chamber Music Competition. As a member of the Calidore, Choi is an Avery Fisher Career Grant winner, recipient of the Lincoln Center Emerging Artist award, BBC 3 New Generation Artist and Borletti-Buitoni Trust recipient. Choi and the Calidore are members of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and alumni of the Bowers Program (formerly CMS Two). Choi’s artistry with the Calidore has been broadly praised by critics like Mark Swed of the Los Angeles Times who wrote that “her tone is rich, deep and powerful, giving the impression that music and the room are a single living being.” Choi studied with John Kadz in Calgary, Aldo Parisot at the Yale School of Music and Ronald Leonard at the Colburn Conservatory. She instructed cello performance and chamber music at the University of Houston. With the Calidore, Choi teaches and performs at the University of Delaware. She holds a Masters degree from the Yale School of Music, and a Bachelor and Artist Diploma from the Colburn Conservatory of Music.