Violinist Cordula Merks has been serving as Concertmaster of the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra since December 2015 after holding the Assistant Concertmaster position with the Seattle Symphony and Concertmaster roles with Germany's Essen, Bochum, and Bergische symphony orchestras.
It's no surprise then, that Merks' Tomadachi Quartet-Mayumi Wyrick (violin), Amy Hiraga (viola), and Peter Wyrick (cello)-brings a high concentration of San Francisco talent to the Conservatory, with decades of experience across the Symphony and Ballet Orchestra among them.
Merks' eclectic program seats contemporary vocal composer Caroline Shaw (Entr'acte, here arranged for string quartet) alongside George Gershwin (Lullaby) and stalwarts like Leos Janacek (String Quartet No. 2, Intimate Letters), and Antonin Dvorak (String Quartet No. 12 in F Major, Op. 96, American).
Janacek's Intimate Letters is justly named: On a vacation, Janacek met and fell deeply in love Kamila Stosslova, undeterred by their 40-year age gap and the fact they were both married. For the next 11 years, Stosslova essentially functioned as Janacek's muse: He wrote over 700 letters to her-and wrote four operas, two string quartets, a mass, and several orchestral works. Interestingly, most of their correspondence was suppressed by Czechoslovakia until 1990.
Dvorak's American, one of the most popular string quartets in the canon, was written while the composer was vacationing in Spillville, Iowa, home to a Czech immigrant community. Feeling at ease there, he was able to complete the piece in 16 days.
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Presented by San Francisco Conservatory of Music