We welcome our newest Lydian, Julia Glenn!

Julia Glenn

The Lydian Quartet is thrilled to announce that Julia Glenn will be joining the quartet as our new second violinist starting this fall! We are so excited for the extraordinary artistry, creativity, personality and gorgeous sound that she brings to the quartet. Mark your calendars for November 5, 2022 @ 8pm for Julia’s Brandeis debut with the Lydian Quartet at Slosberg Music Center!

Boston native Julia Glenn has been hailed as "remarkable," "gripping," and "a brilliant soloist" by the New York Times and performs internationally on modern and baroque violins. She joins the Lydian Quartet from the Tianjin Juilliard School, where she served as violin faculty and was a member of the Tianjin Juilliard Ensemble.

Ms. Glenn has appeared on stages including Alice Tully Hall, Carnegie Hall’s Weill Hall, Sanders Theatre, Jordan Hall, the Beijing Recital Hall, Beijing's National Centre for the Performing Arts, and Shanghai Concert Hall. She has also recently performed with the Shanghai Camerata, New York New Music Ensemble, ACRONYM, Cantata Profana, members of the Juilliard String Quartet, and Soloists of New England. In January of 2016 she gave the world premiere of Milton Babbitt’s violin concerto to critical acclaim; her article on the work was recently published in Contemporary Music Review.

With a deep interest in exploring and sharing the music and culture of China, Julia enjoys drawing on her backgrounds in phonology and Chinese language to open up new avenues in perception and performance. Her doctoral dissertation was titled “Hearing in Tone: A Phonetic Approach to the Analysis and Performance of Chinese Contemporary Music.” As the recipient of Juilliard’s 2019 John Erksine Faculty Prize, she is currently working with Chen Yi on a video project to commission and film dance choreography for Chen’s Memory. This summer she will also record a solo album of new and recent music by Chinese and Chinese-speaking composers. She has recently presented talks and lecture-performances on her work at the Harvard Shanghai Center, Hamburg Hochschule für Musik und Theatre, Harvard University, Shanghai Conservatory, Beijing Central Conservatory, and Juilliard.

Ms. Glenn has previously recorded for Spice Classics and Swan Studio labels. She is a 2018 graduate of Juilliard’s C.V. Starr doctoral program, where she worked with Joseph Lin, Sylvia Rosenberg, and Cynthia Roberts. In 2013 she obtained her master’s from New England Conservatory with James Buswell, and in 2012 her bachelor’s in linguistics magna cum laude from Harvard University. She plays a 2018 Benjamin Ruth.


Lydian Quartet and Kurt Rohde awarded CMA Classical Commissioning grant!

Judy Kurt reh shot.jpg

The Lydian String Quartet is excited to be one of twelve ensembles awarded a grant through Chamber Music America’s Classical Commissioning program supported by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to commission a new work from our amazing composer friend Kurt Rohde! The announcement from CMA:

New York, NY (August 23, 2021)—Chamber Music America (CMA), the national network for ensemble music professionals, today announced the distribution of $1,290,450 through its six grant programs: New Jazz WorksPerformance Plus, and Presenter Consortium for Jazz, supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation; Classical Commissioning, supported by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; Ensemble Forward, supported by the New York Community Trust; and Digital Residency, launched this year to mitigate pandemic-related live performance interruptions, enabling artists and presenters to maintain and cultivate relationships with their audiences, supported by Chamber Music America’s Residency Endowment Fund.

This funding will provide key support for the creation, performance, and presentation of small ensemble works, community engagement/audience-building initiatives, and artist/ensemble development. “This has been such an extraordinary year for the small ensemble music field,” said Margaret M. Lioi, CMA’s CEO who retires this month after 21 years of service to the field. “We are so grateful to our funders for helping us maintain our grant programs during this incredibly difficult time, and applaud the creativity, fortitude, and resilience of our musicians and presenters. Despite the unprecedented challenges they faced, they were unwavering in their commitment to the music and their audiences. CMA is privileged to have helped their projects come to fruition.”

The grantees in each program were selected by independent peer panels and adjudicated throughout CMA’s 2021 fiscal year (July 1, 2020 - June 30, 2021). 

Article in The Strad here

Full grantee list here

ANNOUNCING BRANDEIS UNIVERSITY'S LYDIAN STRING QUARTET FIRST VIOLINIST SEARCH

Brandeis University and the Lydian String Quartet will be accepting applications for the position of first violinist / associate professor of the practice until November 30, 2015. To learn all the details on how to apply for the position, click on button below!


CELEBRATING VIOLINIST DANIEL STEPNER'S 29TH AND FINAL YEAR WITH THE LYDS

Daniel Stepner will be leaving his post with the Lydian String Quartet following the spring of 2016, after, in his own words, "29 satisfying years."  He intends to teach, do selected solo work, and devote more of his time to the Aston Magna Festival, which he has now led for twenty-four years.  He hopes to develop Aston Magna’s outreach concerts, workshops, and to expand the summer concert season into the winter season.  He writes: "I will miss the close contact with the quartet repertoire and the nitty-gritty work with my colleagues — as well as my other faculty friends — but it’s time to start a new chapter.”

First violin since 1987, Daniel performed and recorded an incredible amount of repertoire as a Lydian. As a touring musician, he has played in 11 countries in Western Europe and the former Soviet Union, and throughout Australia and the United States. He has performed and recorded a wide repertoire on period and contemporary instruments. In addition to the Lydian String Quartet's many recordings, he has recorded chamber music by Buxtehude, Bach, Marais, Rameau, Vivaldi, Telemann, Mozart, Schubert, Charles Ives, Harold Shapero, Irving Fine, Yehudi Wyner, David Rakowski and Yu-Hui Chang.

COMPOSER STEVEN SNOWDEN WINS 2015 LYDIAN STRING QUARTET COMMISSION PRIZE

March 20, 2015 - The Lydian String Quartet and Brandeis University are proud to announce the winner of their 2015 Lydian String Quartet Commission Prize. Steven Snowden of Austin Texas has been commissioned to compose a new quartet for the Lydian Quartet, to be premiered in the spring of 2016 at Brandeis University. Snowden was chosen from an incredibly accomplished pool of composer applicants. In addition to awarding the commission to Steven Snowden, composers David Liptak, Lansing McLoskey and Andrew Waggoner have been awarded honorable mention.

Snowden received degrees from the University of Colorado at Boulder, and at the University of Texas at Austin, where he earned a DMA in composition, with a certificate in Electronic Music. He has recently received awards and fellowships from the Aspen Music Festival, the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, the Austin Critics’ Table, Copland House, ISCM World Music Days, New Music USA, IC Hong Kong, The Mizzou New Music International Composers Festival, Future Places Portugal, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the ASCAP Morton Gould Awards among others. He was also the recipient of a 2012-2013 Fulbright Grant to Portugal. In 2013-2014 he was a visiting professor and composer in residence at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and currently works as a freelance composer and concert presenter in Austin, Texas. More information about Steven Snowden can be found at: http://www.stevensnowden.com.

LYDIANS PLAY FOR INAUGURATION OF CHRIS BURDEN'S "LIGHT OF REASON"

On September 10, 2014, the Lydian String Quartet performed the second movement from Shostakovich's String Quartet no. 8 for the inaugural ceremony of the outdoor landscape and sculpture installation "Light of Reason" created by artist Chris Burden for the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University. The evening was a remarkable Brandeis combination of art, music, speeches, and protest.