Chamber Music Cincinnati: Isidore String Quartet with Sterling Elliott, cello

Quick Summary
• We could not be more excited about the return of the ISQ given their stunning performance with pianist Jeremy Denk here last March. The Strad: “Excitement fills the air around the Isidore.”
• We seldom bring back so young an ensemble so soon.
• Joining the ISQ is one of the world’s most exceptional young cellists in his Chamber Music Cincinnati debut.
• After winning the 2022 Banff Competition, it was as if the Isidore was shot out of a cannon. In each of the past three seasons, they’ve played up to 100 concerts.
• With cellist Sterling Elliot they will play what many regard as the single greatest chamber work, Schubert’s String Quintet, written in 1828, just months before his death.
• Their quartet’s first recording, Adorations, name for a Florence Price works, will be out in April. We can’t wait.
• Repertoire: TBA
• Bottom line: Experience deeply emotional connections to the past, present, and future.

Deeper Dive

If there were an award for the decade’s fastest rise by a young U.S. ensemble, the ISQ would surely win. Formed at Juilliard in 2019 and named for the Julliard Quartet’s Isidore Cohen, they reconvened after the Covid shutdown under the JSQ’s legendary cellist, Joel Krosnick, with coaching by it’s late violist, Roger Tapping, its current cellist, Astrid Schween, and by Joseph Kalichstein, Misha Amory, Donald Weilerstein, and Miriam Fried.

On winning the 2022 Banff Competition, it was as if they had been shot out of a cannon. Their 2023 Chamber Music America showcase performance was attended by many of the nation’s leading chamber music presenters, including CMC. The same year, they were awarded the coveted Avery Fisher Career Grant and have never looked back. During each of the three ensuing seasons, they have played as many as 100 concerts, including last month with clarinetist and former CSO Associate Principal Anthony McGill in Indianapolis.

Sterling Elliot received both Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees from Juilliard, where he studied with Juilliard String Quartet cellist Joel Krosnick and with Clara Kim. Still in his mid-twenties, Elliott has appeared with orchestras including the Philadelphia Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Detroit Symphony and the Dallas Symphony, among many.

CMC Subscriptions: Chamber Music’s Greatest Value

• Our “Early Bird” subscriptions for these six concerts are on sale today on our web site and through the Memorial Hall box office. Only you who are receiving this email know about it, giving you first choice of open seats.
• All available seats will be opened to the general public for subscription purchases on Tuesday, February 24.
• Currents subscribers’ seats will be held until June 1, then released to the general public. The six concert price ― $120 in the Orchestra or Balcony ― is one of the nation’s great chamber music bargains. It’s up to 50% off the single ticket price helping to make our concerts more affordable to everyone.

Please remember this affordability pricing in your giving. Only if you do can we maintain pricing at this level.

We hope you are as excited about next season as we are. This may well be our strongest season ever, so we expect subscriptions to sell fast. Single tickets for remaining seats will go on sale June 1.