Monday, April 19, 2027
7:30 PM
*AT THE ATHENAEUM MUSIC & ARTS LIBRARY*
For centuries, the United States has been seen as a place of hope, opportunity, and refuge—a destination for those fleeing war, persecution, violence, and disaster. Yet this promise exists alongside a complex history that challenges us to examine both America’s ideals and its realities.
The Formosa Quartet’s American Mirror Project | Refuge explores these reflections through the stories of two refugee composers, Benjamin Britten and Erwin Schulhoff, who both sought escape from escalating violence in 1939 only to have their fates dramatically diverge. Through their music, Refuge asks what it means to find sanctuary—and what happens when it remains out of reach.
This program also journeys across America’s musical landscape with Compass, tracing iconic sounds from the East, Midwest, South, and West, and explores the Athenaeum's early beginnings on Native homelands with a segment titled 1008 Wall Street. It concludes with the West Coast premiere of Dana Wilson’s Mirror for String Quartet and Narration, featuring original texts by members of the San Diego community.
About the Formosa Quartet:
Winners of the First Prize and Amadeus Prize at the Wigmore Hall International String Quartet Competition, the FORMOSA QUARTET uses the string quartet as a vehicle for advocacy, storytelling, and innovation. Their critically acclaimed performances at venues including the Library of Congress, the Chicago Cultural Center, the Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center, the National Concert Hall in Taipei, and the Kammermusiksaal at the Berliner Philharmonie have forged uncharted musical terrain that are “spellbinding” (The Strad), “remarkably fine” (Gramophone), and “go beyond the beautiful and into the territory of unexpectedly thrilling… like shots of pure espresso” (MUSO Magazine).
Formed in 2002 when the four Taiwanese-descended founders came together for a concert tour of Taiwan, the Formosa Quartet’s cultural identity has since expanded to include broader American, pan-Asian, and Eastern European roots. Their name “Formosa” is taken in its most basic sense: Portuguese for “beautiful.” The founding members’ interest in championing Taiwanese music and Indigenous cultures has since expanded to include the exploration of the rich folk traditions and heritages found in America today. Whether in its uncompromisingly exploratory approach to the standard quartet literature; its socioculturally probing American Mirror Project; or its unique Sets curated from its collection of folk, pop, jazz, and poetry arrangements, the Formosa Quartet is committed to an insatiable search for the fresh and new in string quartet expression.
The Formosa Quartet has played a leading role in actively commissioning new works, contributing significantly to the modern string quartet repertory. The ensemble’s milestone album From Hungary to Taiwan (Bridge Records, 2019) includes premiere recordings of three Formosa commissions: Lei Liang’s Song Recollections, Dana Wilson’s Hungarian Folk Songs, and Wei-Chieh Lin’s Five Taiwanese Folk Songs. Other works written and premiered by the quartet include pieces by Shih-Hui Chen, Katinka Kleijn, Wei-Chieh Lin, Clancy Newman, Paul Novak, Angelique Poteat, and Dana Wilson. Formosa Quartet’s latest release of The Music of George Frederick McKay (Orchid Classics, 2025), a world-premiere recording of the American’s four reflective, playful, and intricate string quartets, was praised by BBC Record Review as “just gorgeous—perfect, really.” The ensemble’s discography can be heard on EMI Classics, New World Records, Delos, and New Focus Recordings.
The Formosa Quartet undertakes a variety of residencies across North America and Asia, and serves as the Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Houston’s Moores School of Music, Texas Music Festival, and National Youth Orchestra of Canada. During the 2023-2024 season, they held the M. Thelma McAndless Distinguished Professor Chair in the Humanities at Eastern Michigan University where they launched their American Mirror Project with a community of 14,000 people, a collaborative initiative that holds up mirrors and highlights personal reflections on the history, identity, and meaning of "America” through a thought-provoking exploration of American music.
The members of Formosa Quartet — Jasmine Lin, David Bernat, Matthew Cohen, and Deborah Pae — form an octet with violins Andrea Guarneri (1662) and Samuel Zygmuntowicz (1984), a Giuseppe Guadagnini viola (1793), and a Vincenzo Postiglione cello (1885).
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