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Rosamunde String Quartet
“If you were assembling an all-star chamber group, you couldn’t do much better than the Rosamunde String Quartet.” —Cleveland Classical
The Rosamunde String Quartet is comprised of musicians of some of the world’s leading orchestras: Noah Bendix-Balgley, first concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic; Shanshan Yao, member of the Kammerakademie Potsdam and former violinist in the New York Philharmonic; Teng Li, principal viola of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra; and Nathan Vickery, cellist in the New York Philharmonic. Celebrated for its “uniformly rich sound from top to bottom” (Cleveland Classical), the quartet formed in 2015 as a passion project of its all-star members. By uniting their experiences as internationally touring soloists and orchestra musicians, they create a distinctive sound and unanimity of expression.
The quartet’s 2024–25 season includes performances at Curtis Institute of Music and University Musical Society at the University of Michigan. Recent seasons have included appearances in Asheville, N.C.; Bloomington, Ind.; Boston, Mass.; Cincinnati and Cleveland, Ohio; New York City; Pittsburgh, Pa.; Washington, D.C.; and Toronto, Ontario. The group has performed collaboratively with artists such as Benjamin Hochman and Peter Wiley. Masterclasses and residencies at music schools and festivals such as Curtis, Carnegie Mellon University, Cleveland Institute of Music, Morningside Music Bridge, and the University of Toronto are an important part of the quartet’s touring activities.
The Rosamunde String Quartet’s members studied at renowned schools including Curtis Institute of Music, Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, and the Juilliard School.
curtis.edu/RosamundeStringQuartet
Facebook and Instagram: @rosamundestringquartet
Program for Rosamunde String Quartet
Noah Bendix-Balgley, violin
Shanshan Yao, violin
Teng Li, viola
Nathan Vickery, cello
October 25, 2025, 2 p.m.
Bethel United Methodist Church Hall,
Lewes, DE
Program
Program Subject to Change
Program Notes
Beethoven: String Quartet in D Major, Op. 18 No. 3 (1796). The Viennese correspondent of a German newspaper in 1800 wrote: "…private concerts (in well-to-do homes) are legion here all winter long. Not a name-day, not a birthday goes by without a musical performance". Beethoven's reputation made him integral to many of these gatherings, both as a pianist and as a composer of chamber music. His Op. 18 quartets were played at such occasions, and were dedicated to Prince Lobkowitz, one of Beethoven's earliest patrons. Of the six quartets in the series, No. 3 is the most genial and relaxed. Its mood is bright, lyrical and humorous. Here, Beethoven writes an extraordinary string quartet in the finest style; the fantastic finale is a tour de force of vivacity and wit. Though listed as No. 3, the D Major Quartet was likely the first string quartet that Beethoven composed.
George Walker, born in Washington, DC, was an iconic figure among Black American classical composers. His father came from Jamaica to the United States, where he graduated and became a physician. George Walker's mother supervised her son's first piano lessons when he was five years old. He was admitted to Oberlin College as a scholarship student at the age of 15, where he studied piano and organ. Graduating at 18 from with the highest honors in his class, he was admitted to the Curtis Institute of Music, where he graduated with diplomas in piano and composition.
During his career, Walker composed over 90 works for orchestra, chamber ensembles, piano, strings, voice, organ, clarinet, guitar, brass, woodwinds, and chorus. These have been performed by major orchestras in the United States and around the world, and have been much recorded. In April 2000, Walker was inducted into the American Classical Music Hall of Fame in a ceremony at the Library of Congress. Walker achieved many “firsts” in classical music, not least of which was being the first Black composer to be awarded a Pulitzer Prize in Music, for his work Lilacs. July 2009 saw the publication of Walker’s autobiography, “Reminiscences of an American Composer and Pianist”. Honored, respected and admired, he lived to be 96.
String Quartet No. 1, “Lyric” (1946) was a great success from the start, and has remained one of Walker’s most-performed works. He wrote it while a graduate student at Curtis, with deep feelings for his grandmother who had passed away the previous year; initially he titled it Lament. The second movement was recognized early on as particularly suited to performance by a full string orchestra; it is characterized by long spun-out melodic lines that weave in and out with emotional sinuousness. The composer later named his orchestral arrangement Lyric for Strings, but continued to refer to it informally as “my grandmother’s piece”.
Mendelssohn: String Quartet No. 6 in F Minor, Op. 80 (1847). In May 1847, Mendelssohn’s beloved sister Fanny, herself a talented composer, suddenly passed out during a rehearsal and died of a cerebral hemorrhage; she was only 41. Felix was overcome by grief; when told of her death, he collapsed with a ruptured blood vessel in his head. Fanny’s death was a devastating blow to him, made worse by the fact that he was physically too unwell to attend her funeral. With his wife, Cécile, and his brother, Paul, Felix went to Interlaken, Switzerland to rest and recover. However, as he was accompanied by an entourage of no less than twenty people, rest and quiet were not to be had. There he hiked, made drawings and watercolors of the Swiss countryside…and forced himself to compose. He decided to write a string quartet as an homage to his sister, first calling it Requiem For Fanny. This masterpiece was born over a four-month period in a mood Mendelssohn cited as "grey upon grey". Rather than a premiere, the piece had a private first performance in October of the same year. Ironically in November Felix died of a paralytic stroke, aged only 38. This quartet was the last major work Felix Mendelssohn composed. It is tough, powerful music. There are hints of contrasting consolation, but the struggles throughout are serious and impassioned. Felix was buried alongside his sister in the cemetery of Holy Cross Church in Berlin. The score was published posthumously in 1850.