The San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM) today announces the appointment of the Telegraph Quartet as the institution’s next quartet-in-residence. The position, which the Quartet will hold from the 2017–18 season through the 2019–20 season, will showcase the ensemble through public performances at SFCM. In addition, the members of the Quartet will coach degree-seeking students in the chamber music program and work with promising young soloists and chamber musicians in SFCM’s Pre-College. Three of the Quartet’s members—Eric Chin, Pei-Ling Lin, and Joseph Maile—are graduates of SFCM; Lin and Maile are currently on faculty.

“We are very pleased to welcome the Telegraph Quartet to this residency and to provide a forum for their extraordinary work as both artists and teachers,” says SFCM President David H. Stull. “This is a unique opportunity for our students to work closely with a group of musicians who have enjoyed tremendous success early in their career—a superb model for the aspiring young chamber ensemble.”

“As co-chair of the chamber music department, I'm thrilled to have the Telegraph Quartet at SFCM,” says faculty member Ian Swensen. “These musicians will inspire and energize our students and community, continuing a long line of Naumburg Award-winning chamber faculty.”

“The Telegraph Quartet is very honored to be joining the faculty at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music,” says Joseph Maile, one of the Quartet’s violinists. “It means so much to us to be able to continue the tradition of excellent chamber music for which the Conservatory is so renowned. We are indebted to our mentors, many of whom were and are chamber music faculty at the Conservatory, for their guidance and spirit, and our mission is to pass on, in our own way, that passion and knowledge of chamber music as it was passed down to us.”

Described by the San Francisco Chronicle as “…an incredibly valuable addition to the cultural landscape” and “powerfully adept… with a combination of brilliance and subtlety,” the Telegraph Quartet, originally formed in 2013, is the recipient of some of the chamber music world’s highest honors. Most recently, the Quartet was the winner of the 2016 Walter W. Naumburg Chamber Music Award and the Grand Prize at the 2014 Fischoff Chamber Music Competition. The Quartet has performed at venues from Los Angeles and New York to Italy and Taiwan, including Carnegie Hall, San Francisco’s Herbst Recital Hall, and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and at festivals including the Chautauqua Institute, Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival, and the Emilia Romagna Festival. In 2016, the Quartet was invited as one of a handful of emerging professional string quartets from around the world to perform in Paris, France at the Biennale de quatuors à cordes, a showcase for major concert presenters of Europe and Asia taking place at the Philharmonie de Paris.

The Telegraph Quartet gave its first Carnegie Hall appearance in Weill Recital Hall in 2015 along with violinist and SFCM faculty member Ian Swensen and pianist Jeff LaDeur. The Quartet returns to Carnegie Hall in 2018 for its Naumburg Award Recital featuring the world premiere of Robert Sirota’s third string quartet. Notable collaborations have included projects with cellist Norman Fischer, pianist Simone Dinnerstein, and the Henschel Quartett. A fervent champion of contemporary and 20th-century repertoire, the Telegraph Quartet has co-commissioned John Harbison’s String Quartet No. 6, which is scheduled for its West Coast premiere in the fall of 2017 at San Francisco State University’s Morrison Artist Series. In 2017, the Quartet plans to release its debut album featuring works by Anton Webern, Benjamin Britten, and Leon Ki­­­rchner.

Previous ensembles-in-residence at SFCM have included the Alma Trio, Francesco Trio, and Griller Quartet.