Calidore Quartet with Arnold Choi, cello

The Calidore String Quartet is recognized as one of the world’s foremost interpreters of a vast chamber music repertory, from the cycles of quartets by Beethoven and Mendelssohn to works of celebrated contemporary voices like György Kurtág, Jörg Widmann, and Caroline Shaw. The Los Angeles Times described the musicians as “astonishing,” their playing “shockingly deep,” approaching “the kind of sublimity other quartets spend a lifetime searching.” The New York Times noted the Quartet’s “deep reserves of virtuosity and irrepressible dramatic instinct,” the Washington Post wrote that “four more individual musicians are unimaginable, yet these speak, breathe, think and feel as one.”

The New York City-based Calidore String Quartet has appeared in venues throughout North America, Europe, and Asia, including Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, London’s Wigmore Hall, Berlin’s Konzerthaus, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, Brussels’ BOZAR, and at major festivals such as the BBC Proms, Verbier, Ravinia and Music@Menlo. The Quartet has collaborated with artists such as Anne-Sophie Mutter, Anthony McGill, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Marc-André Hamelin, Joshua Bell, Emerson String Quartet, Gabriela Montero, David Finckel and Wu Han and many more.

In their most ambitious recording project, the Calidore is set to release Beethoven’s complete String Quartets for Signum Records. Volume I, containing the late quartets, was released in 2023 to great critical acclaim, earning the quartet BBC Music Magazine’s Chamber Award in 2024. 

Founded at the Colburn School in Los Angeles in 2010, the Calidore String Quartet has won top prizes at major US chamber music competitions, including the Fischoff, Coleman, Chesapeake, and Yellow Springs. The quartet won the $100,000 Grand Prize of the 2016 M-Prize International Chamber Music Competition and the Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship. The Calidore has been a BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist and recipient of the Avery Fisher Career Grant and the Lincoln Center Emerging Artist Award.

Described by The New York Times as having a “rich tone and muscular style,” Canadian cellist Arnold Choi has earned acclaim for performances across North America, Europe, and Asia. A prizewinner of Korea’s Gyeongnam (Isang Yun) International Cello Competition and Mexico’s Carlos Prieto International Cello Competition, he has also claimed top honors in numerous North American competitions, including the Montreal Symphony Orchestra Competition and the Canadian National Music Festival. Choi has appeared as a soloist with renowned orchestras, such as the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, Quebec Symphony Orchestra, and Shanghai Opera House Orchestra. At 14, he gave his first recital tour in Mexico and has since performed extensively as a soloist and chamber musician. As a former member of the Janaki String Trio, Choi won the Grand Prize at the Coleman Chamber Music Competition and the Concert Artists Guild International Competition. Arnold began studying cello with John Kadz in Calgary before earning degrees from the Colburn Conservatory, Yale School of Music, and Stony Brook University, where he studied with esteemed teachers Ronald Leonard, Aldo Parisot, and Colin Carr. He is the principal cellist of the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra and performs on a cello from the French School of Caussin circa 1880.