by Daniel Hathaway
On March 12, near the beginning of their 14-city North American tour, the Dover Quartet returned to Cleveland to plumb the depths of a rich selection of programmatic pieces on the Cleveland Chamber Music Society series at Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights.
The audience was swelled by a large contingent of students from the Elyria High School Orchestra, who listened attentively from the church’s balconies and received a first-class lesson in ensemble playing from one of the finest string quartets in the business.
Having discovered surprisingly little overlap between their mailing lists, Cleveland’s two main purveyors of chamber music decided to bring their followers together on April 5 to enjoy a joint concert at the Maltz Performing Arts Center.
Examining the mailing lists of an arts organization can reveal a lot. First and foremost that list tells you who is attending the events. And when comparing the mailing lists of two like-minded organizations, for example ones devoted to chamber music, one would expect to find more than a fair amount of overlap.
Robert Schumann wrote his three string quartets in a span of less than two months during the summer of 1842. We think of such intensely productive times as manic, especially for Schumann, who is now thought to have suffered from bipolar disorder. But in some ways, the music of Op. 41 belies that.
On Tuesday, December 3 at 7:30 pm at Plymouth Church, the Dover Quartet will return to the Cleveland Chamber Music Society bearing a healthy, six-week-old piece of music by David Bruce alongside works by Britten and Brahms.
What do marriage and an octopus have in common? They both served as inspirations for Gregg Kallor’s new work for string octet. On Wednesday, October 30 at 7:30 pm at E.J. Thomas Hall, Tuesday Musical will present “October Octets” featuring the Dover and Escher String Quartets. The program will include the premiere of Kallor’s 
Since winning the grand prize and three special prizes at the 2013 Banff International String Quartet Competition, the Dover Quartet — Joel Link and Bryan Lee, violins, Milena Pajaro-van de Stadt, viola, and Camden Shaw, cello — have quickly risen to the forefront of young, internationally touring string quartets. Following that 2013 breakthrough, the ensemble has added to their resume a Cleveland Quartet Award, a Lincoln Center Emerging Artist Award, and most recently an Avery Fisher Career Grant.