The celebrated Balourdet Quartet (pronounced bal-orr-DAY) produces both emotionally intense and intimate moments on international stages. Its unique closeness and willingness to take creative risks earned it the 2024 Avery Fisher Career Grant, as well as Chamber Music America’s 2024 Cleveland Quartet Award. With more than 70 concerts per season, recent highlights include the Balourdet’s debuts at Carnegie and Wigmore Halls, and new string quartets by composers Karim Al-Zand and Paul Novak through grants from Chamber Music America (2021) and the Barlow Foundation (2023). They are currently the Graduate Quartet in Residence at the prestigious Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University and are recent graduates of the New England Conservatory’s Professional String Quartet Program.

Presented in collaboration with the Emerging String Quartet Program at Stanford University

Program

HAYDN String Quartet, No. 5, Op. 64, “Lark” (1790)​
KARIM AL-ZAND String Quartet No. 4 “Strange Machines” (2022)
PAUL NOVAK Impossible Inventions (2024)
SMETANA String Quartet No. 1 in E minor, “From my Life” (1876)​