[photo credit: Esmé Quartet]
The concert, scheduled from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m., will feature a program including Henri Dutilleux’s “Ainsi la Nuit,” Maurice Ravel’s String Quartet in F Major, and Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 14 in C-sharp minor, Op.131.
Formed in 2016 at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz in Cologne, Germany, the quartet consists of four Korean musicians who were already friends in their youth, with shared interests in music, arts, and life before establishing the ensemble.
The quartet’s reputation was firmly established in 2018 when they won first prize and four special awards at the prestigious Wigmore Hall International String Quartet Competition in London.
That same year, the group also became HSBC Laureate of the Académie du Festival d’Aix, further cementing their status in the international chamber music community.
The ensemble’s name is derived from medieval French and translates to “beloved,” reflecting the intimate connection between the musicians and their approach to performance.
The current members are Wonhee Bae, first violin; Yuna Ha, second violin; Ye-eun Heo, cello; and Dimitri Murrath, viola (joined in March 2023 replacing founding violist Jiwon Kim).
Sunday’s concert continues the tradition of the Coleman Chamber Music Association, founded in 1904 by Alice Coleman (later Alice Coleman Batchelder) and now recognized as one of the oldest organizations in the United States dedicated to chamber music presentation and appreciation.
The Coleman Chamber Music Association presents an annual series of six concerts at Caltech, with all concerts presented on Sunday afternoons. The series is part of a storied musical tradition that has enriched Southern California’s cultural landscape for over a century.
