"The Calder Quartet’s musical performance was as near to perfect as any that I have heard. Kudos to Chico Performances for bringing this mesmerizing, world-class string quartet to a local stage."

"Exquisitely shaped playing and bold musicianship in a compelling, haunting disc."

"The precise and to-the-point Calders, who have developed a relationship with Eötvös (they are working on a project for 2016 in Paris), brought it off brilliantly."

"The rich ensemble sound and razor-crisp playing made for a cool, jewel-like performance." Read More...

"The Calder Quartet’s performance was lucid and engaging, sometimes fiery and diabolic, and at other times dreamy and impressionistic. Performing this kaleidoscopic piece alongside the variety of other works on the program demonstrated the Calder’s mastery and versatility.

"Clearly the Calder Quartet were the heroes of the day, not just for the last-minute substitution, but equally for performing a daring and virtuoso program."

"America is awash with good string quartets. The trouble is, we seldom get to hear them over here. So full marks to the Edinburgh Festival for enticing the Calder Quartet, which, on yesterday’s evidence, sits well among the US top tier."

"Good things happen when clarinetist John Bruce Yeh is on stage. Yeh, with the Calder Quartet, was at the center of last weekend’s illuminating performance of Aaron Jay Kernis’ new 'Perpetual Chaconne' at SummerFest."

"The Calder's passionate engagement with the music was notable; so was their pinpoint control and near-flawless execution." Read More...

"From the hauntingly modern Adagio that opens this work, the Calder Quartet gave a sensitive and nuanced reading with considered and constant interaction among musicians and musical lines."

"The fire was there, and so was the clarity." Read More...

"And Daniel Wohl's 'Glitch' (2009), a busily tactile essay for strings and electronics, demanded a virtuosic wildness that the Calder Quartet supplied unwaveringly."

"The Calders, who commissioned the work, were outstanding not only in their sound but in their communication and the ease with which they moved between romantic, melodic fragments, minimalist rhythmic pulsating, and Ligeti-esque modern string effects."

"The group demonstrated a nicely taut sense of playing in the Mozart piece, nicknamed 'Dissonance.' So nice, in fact, to the point where it was clear that, as a seasoned ensemble, they could play off one another's energies." Read More...

"Largo's harsh acoustics delighted both the music and a young, hip crowd that was a classical-music demographer's dream. The quartet left the stage to choice howls and excited applause." Read More...

"The Calder found its own gorgeous way into Górecki. The playing did not lack power or drama, but it was not tense. Instead, these four players exuded a kind of rapture in which they were very much in tune with not only the pulse on the page or the score's moody melodies and richly somber harmonies, but also of each other."

"Just like going to the desert and complaining about the lack of vegetation, or visiting the California redwoods and being disappointed that the trees block the view, miss the point, so does coming to a program like this and listening with traditional ears. The trick is to find the music's expectations, and that's a rewarding experience in itself." Read More...

"The Calder Quartet played Arcadiana marvelously, with great concentration and bulletproof technique." Read More...

"Speaking about one of the pieces for string trio, Riley said, 'The Calders play it with great bristling energy ... they really are wonderful players who go into music deeply.'"

"When it comes to the exciting young chamber music ensemble sweepstakes, there are few collectives quite as exciting as Los Angeles' hometown heroes, The Calder Quartet."

"From a melancholy opening filled with swooping glissandos, the 20-minute string quartet emphasizes group virtuosity with jagged bursts of notes deployed in rhythmic unison, mostly at high velocity. Likened by Mr. Rouse in a program note to a grand mal seizure and uneasy even in repose, the piece is unsparing in its demands for pinpoint accuracy, sudden dynamic contrasts and clear articulation. The Calder players met all of its challenges easily in an exacting account."

"And as it turned out, the new stuff was interesting, entertaining and consonant -- not medicine, but tonic..." Read More...

"Dressed in their trademark black suits and straight black ties, the Calders -- violinists Benjamin Jacobson and Andrew Bulbrook, violist Jonathan Moerschel, and cellist Eric Byers -- provided vibrant support. Especially heart-rending was Vladimir Godar's 'Majkomasmalon,' where Bittova sang of flickering candles and falling rain, her voice hovering plaintively above gently rocking accompaniment." Read More...

"Cheng and the Calder's have played this piece often enough to turn it into something of a signature, and showed remarkable cohesiveness and confidence-not to mention delicacy-in maneuvering through what at times sounded like five discrete rhythmic patterns layered on top of one another." Read More...

"Ms. Cheng and the Calder players united in a dazzling account of Mr. Adès' Piano Quintet, in which seeming stylistic nods to Brahms, Schubert, Stravinsky and more are transmogrified into a blazing tour de force of impish affection."

"As far as classical string quartets go, the four gentlemen of the Calder Quartet are as close as it comes to rock stars. They've played on three of the big late-night television shows, toured with party-rocker Andrew WK, and recorded with the indie rock band Vampire Weekend. At the same time, the Julliard-trained quartet is favored by living classical composers Christopher Rouse, Terry Riley and Thomas Adès, and is the ensemble in residence at Carlsbad, the alternative classical music festival." Read More...

"At core of Thursday's event was a superb performance by the Calder Quartet of Kate Moore's haunting, even unforgettable, 58-minute 'Violins and Skeletons.'" Read More...

"Calder's ownership of this piece and their evident devotion to it were evident at every turn, and the stamina required to sustain the energy of this hour-long marathon is inspiring." Read More...

"Whether it's classical string quartets by Mozart, experimental pieces by path-breaking composer Terry Riley or exciting new work by contemporary British composer Thomas Ads, Calder Quartet love it all. They're even into world-beat preppies Vampire Weekend and hard-rocking party animal Andrew W.K., both of whom they've performed with in recent years." Read More...

"It says something that the Calder Quartet, in its recital at the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue on Saturday, was able to conjure the lush world of Ravel's String Quartet in the lyrical first movement, and found a Beethovenian strain of stark yet approachable melancholy in the final movement. Bartok's arresting middle movement, with its fits, starts and broken melodies, was mined for its bleak humor and obsessive energy, but without surrendering the ensemble's notably handsome tone." Read More...

"The second concert in Melbourne's International Arts Festival by the acclaimed Calder Quartet continued their championing of Thomas Ades, but in a more oblique way, performing three works allegedly close to the British composer. Their selection was surprisingly traditional - from Schubert to Janacek - but made for a pleasingly well rounded program performed with convincing authority." Read More...

"The quartet appears to glide seamlessly and cohesively across the most challenging parts of the each piece they play, cutting and dancing across the music like skilled surfers across the waves. This would be impressive to watch even if you couldn't hear what they were playing. They are clearly masters of their instruments, from the most gentle to the most aggressive of notes." Read More...

"At the program's start, the Calder Quartet performed Arcadiana, a seven-movement suite projecting well-contrasted idyllic images and employing scraps of Schubert, Mozart and other voices, enriched by some accomplished harmonics and a near-faultless ensemble, blessed with an outstanding viola voice in Jonathan Moerschel."

"The highlight of the evening, however, was the Quartet's return for the final piece of the evening - Adés' single movement Piano Quintet. Commissioned originally for the 2001 Melbourne Festival, this was a dramatic, intricate, and unconventional exploration of the sonata form. The dynamic interplay between the performers was exciting to watch, and their evident pleasure in the challenges presented by the music carried over into an audience clearly mesmerized by the ebb and flow between instruments. Concluding with a dramatic edge-of-your-seat style crescendo and subsequent curtain-calls, this was an evening that delighted audience and performers in equal measure." Read More...

"'Cal-der! Cal-der! Cal-der!' the crowd chants rapturously, inky sweat blooming on their T-shirts after storming the stage for rock berserker Andrew W.K.'s irrepressible 'Party Hard.' But on this October night in 2009, the Lakeshore Theater horde is cheering not for W.K., but for the L.A.-based Calder Quartet-bow-wielding men decked out in J. Lindeberg duds who have proven Philip Glass's String Quartet No. 2 is a perfect complement to W.K.'s anthemic rock number 'I Get Wet.'"

"The Calder Quartet (Benjamin Jacobson, and Andrew Bulbrook, violins; Jonathan Moerschel, viola; and Eric Byers, cello) plays with assurance, focus, and guts." Read More...

"This was as musically wild an evening as I ever had at a punk club or stadium rock concert, the intensity all the more intense for it being so rigorously written down and rehearsed. In his useful program notes-an essay for each piece-Rouse described String Quartet #3 as 'my most challenging and uncompromising work to date.,' and that's certainly how the Calder Quartet played it. With their black jackets and skinny ties, the Calders look like a fanatasy of the Mersey-era Beatles trying to leap into the string complexities and car-crashes of Sgt. Pepper's A Day in the Life. They are madcap modern musicians on a mission, fearless aural agitators engaged in the concert equivalent of untangling the wiring in an undetonated bomb. They wrench such extraordinary sounds out of their instruments-whispery scratches that sound electronic in their static humming, chirpy trills which they can clip to a nanosecond's length. These are not gimmicks; they are in service to a composer they cherish, and their huge palette of expressions shows how deeply they want to find all the textures in Rouse's work. Rouse is accustomed to writing for orchestras; the Calder Quartet demonstrates how well his work can work on a more intimate scale."

"Looking like a sort of classical early Beatles, with their dark suits and skinny ties, the youthful Los Angeles-based Calder Quartet offered a concert notable for technical confidence and a keen musical sensibility shared by all four performers. Their performance truly was a conversation among equals." Read More...

"Cheng and the Calders gave it a stunningly visceral and delicate reading, managing its metrical games with seeming nonchalance." Read More...

"... Tuesday's concert by the superb Calder Quartet showed that the time-honored string quartet format still provides fertile ground for innovation and surprise in the hands of imaginative, skillful creators."

"Not your typical easy-listening string quartet" Read More...

"The Calder Quartet was also superb. They seemed to play with no preconceptions at all, no habits of performance, no tricks from their tool bag to draw on, because the music felt utterly new."

"The players handle this brutal music with untiring energy, authority, and aplomb." Read More...

"Another eye-popping performance took place late on the evening of December 4 at Disney Hall, with the much-admired LA-based Calder Quartet and the young Los Angeles indie rock band called The Airborne Toxic Event. The crowd was far younger, hipper, and less well heeled. The room was packed and totally impassioned. The charismatic Airborne Toxic Event had just returned from a long and successful world tour, and was welcomed home by ecstatic fans. The Calder's opened with a feverish, white hot and amplified movement from the Ravel Quartet. It was a shockingly good opening to an indie rock concert in Disney Hall."

"The success they've had doesn't encourage them to relax. 'It's kind of the nature of the beast of what we do,' says Bulbrook. 'As your understanding increases, or you get better at it, the horizon always kind of stays the same distance away. As you grow you're getting better, but you're always hearing more possibilities.

'At one level it's agonizing, but at another level it's completely fascinating -- to always be struggling to fully understand what you're gonna play.'"

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"The Calder Quartet plays with certain abandon, and after studying these works with the composer, I assume that's exactly what Rouse wanted."
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"With exacting choreography of Rouse's ruthless writing, the Calder Quartet confirms its place as one of the most fearlessly dexterous ensembles today." Read More...

"Whether they're performing with Thomas Adès, Andrew WK or David Letterman's house band, the Calder string quartet are blazing exciting new ground." Read More...

"For a finale, the ever-impressive Calder Quartet joined Cheng for Schnittke's Piano Quintet, written -slowly - in memory of his late mother. The piece works its way through passages of tension and layering to the mesmeric finale. Here, strings dispense echoes of previous themes over the pianist's sweet, repetitive music box-like patterns, playing like a life passing before our ears, wistfully."

"When the quartet took the reins, they were relaxed and effortless, delivering a sinister and athletic read on Christine Southworth's 'Honey Flyers I-III' and Philip Glass' 'Company I-IV.'"

"The quartet came at us from all angles physically, foreshadowing the way they'd also come at us from all angles artistically." Read More...

"Andrew W.K. and the Calder Quartet gave us a sweet rendition of not only Bach, but an orgasmic Philip Glass and a playful John Cage in a course of two hours. Clapping didn't have to wait for the end of the piece; head banging had never felt so painless; foot stomping had never been so welcome. A string quartet has rarely been so loose. The members could rarely hold themselves from smiling and rocking out, banging their heads to their own chords." Read More...

"Anchoring the festival, as it has every year since its creation, is the L.A.-based Calder Quartet, a nationally acclaimed ensemble that includes Benjamin Jacobson (his brother Peter, a cellist, has also played at the festival in the past). Its program on Saturday will feature several world premiere compositions." Read More...

"The Orange County Performing Arts Center's small but choice Concert Series has long been a place to hear the best string quartets, and this season is no exception, with visits from the Emerson String Quartet, the St. Lawrence String Quartet and the Calder Quartet.

"This last, quartet-in-residence at the Colburn Conservatory in Los Angeles and winner of a 2009 ASCAP Adventurous Programming Award, is among the most talented of the young chamber ensembles working today, combining in nice proportion brains, sensitivity and curiosity."

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"Their youthful energy, refracted through the lens of technical rigor, made every aspect of Mozart irresistable: brilliance without a hard edge, and singing lines that sounded knowing yet innocent at the same time." Read More...

"Southern California’s own Calder Quartet has fostered strong connections with contemporary composers Christopher Rouse, Thomas Adès and Terry Riley, as well as a number of younger composers featured with Calder at the annual Carlsbad Music Festival. But Calder is not into specialization—they claim the whole landscape of chamber music from Haydn to the commission arriving in tomorrow’s Fed-Ex box. And I do not know another string quartet that commands this territory with the authority and finesse of the Calder Quartet." Read More...

"Is Jay Leno a classical music fan? Who knows, but tonight on NBC, he'll play host to the L.A.-based Calder Quartet, an ensemble of string instrument players who are also faculty members at the Colburn School Conservatory of Music in downtown L.A." Read More...

"The Calders are really good. They play the classical repertory with elegance and respect, patience and genuine wit. Beethoven's first 'Razumovsky' was their other big work on Friday, and this, too, was treated exactly right: a big, loving performance full of the great rhythmic quirks of middle-period Beethoven. Better still, they let the stars come out and shine all over the slow movement. That movement is just the reverse of Mozart's. Midway, it simply soars, skyward, and the great performances do nothing to control the captivating ecstasy, as this didn't." Read More...

"The Calder Quartet works hard and plays hard. They have a cerebral approach that challenges listeners to expand. There are great chamber pieces being written every year by talented unknown composers. I hope the Calder Quartet continues to extract new material that enlarges the scope of the American musical mind." Read More...

"There are many ways to describe music, from the fanciful to the mundane, but Wednesday afternoon a young string quartet from Los Angeles compellingly brought an audience's ears back to the art's most fundamental identity: Sound." Read More...

"Clearly, the Calder Quartet is one of the most exciting young quartets to emerge during the first decade of the twenty first century, and this disc provides early access to an extremely exciting young chamber ensemble." Read More...

"An earthquake in the Mojave Desert slightly rocked Zipper during Mozart's rollicking Finale. The Calder was not the cause. It only felt that way.... I've written before that every time I hear the Calder, the ensemble seems to have reached a new level. That remains true, and now only the stars are the limit, as the Calder takes its place as one of America's most satisfying -- and most enterprising -- quartets." Read More...

"Dressed in tight black suits with straight black ties, the four gentlemen of the Los Angeles-based Calder Quartet look like hit men as much as musicians. Yet their hip style mirrors their artistry. Like an undercover agent, their music-making, as evidenced at the group's Cleveland debut Wednesday night at Plymouth Church of Shaker Heights, is stealthy, cool and potent by turns." Read More...

"Alexander Calder's mobiles balance color and form so that the organic shapes move with relation to each other and make for constant visual intrigue. Musical programs assembled by the Calder Quartet are a sound analog to that idea, balancing one piece of music against another so that each reveals something new." Read More...

"But in all conscience, this well-recorded disc is a splendid advertisement for standards at the Colburn School." Read More...

"Last week's concert also enlisted ... the up-and-coming Calder String Quartet, quite possibly the finest -- and certainly the most adventurous -- American chamber group." Read More...

"The program closed with the Calder Quartet, which has been associated with the festival from the beginning and in an astonishingly short time has become the American string quartet to watch." Read More...

"The Calder Quartet is rooted in the classics such as Beethoven and Bartok, McBane said. 'But then they also have an adventurous side to their programming. Their usual programs will be a juxtaposition of modern works with the classics of the string-quartet repertoire.'" Read More...

"The Calder is another in a group of young, highly talented quartets for whom contemporary music is as much part of the lingua franca as the greatest hits of the 18th and 19th centuries. Their self-titled debut recording - available as both a CD and download from the quartet's own website - opens with Ravel's sole string quartet and ends with Mozart's last, both elegantly rendered. But the real attraction comes in between: a powerful and sensuous reading of "Arcadiana" by British composer Thomas Adès." Read More...

"On the classical music scene, they have established a national presence. In the last year, the quartet's presence in LA has been palpable. In late May, the Calder Quartet made their debut at the Walt Disney Hall opening a program featuring the music of modern composer, Thomas Adès. That same day, they released their latest record, 'Maurice Ravel-Thomas Adès-W.A. Mozart' (available on Itunes)." Read More...

"The quartet -- Andrew Bulbrook and Benjamin Jacobson, violins; Jonathan Moerschel, viola; and Eric Byers, cello -- captured the frivolity often conjured by Mozart's music. Melodies were tossed back and forth between players in the elegant give and take so crucial to good chamber music. The quartet played with a broad, dark tone. Phrases were weighted with color, tapering from one instrument to another." Read More...

"Ravel's String Quartet is a burst of seductive and ravishing ideas in their hands, and they treat the seven movements of Thomas Ades' enchanting "Arcadiana" with utmost clarity, color and cohesion. In Mozart's Quartet in F major, K. 590, the Calder catapult the score's invigorating material as vividly as they probe its dramatic corners. Grade: A" Read More...

"There is an almost delirious display of rich coloration and complex textures that unify these three works, spanning 220 years of string literature. Yet the Calder Quartet--Benjamin Jacobson and Andrew Bulbrook, violins; Jonathan Moerschel, viola; and Eric Byers, cello--bring a sense of purpose to this adventurous program that underscores the group's stature as quartet-in-residence at the Colburn School in Los Angeles." Read More...

"The Calder Quartet played "Arcadiana," which reimagines olden times. The players limn something Elgar-like, float into old paintings, wander just this side of Ades' beloved Couperin, dip their toes into "The Magic Flute" and late Beethoven.

The accomplishment here, though, is that the music feels modern, the old world as contemporary dream. The Calder, which has just recorded it, grows ever more ravishing." Read More...

"The Calder Quartet -- suave in appearance and elegantly unified in its playing -- is the model of the sleek young string quartet. The ensemble's technical accomplishment is very high. The four men dress alike: fitted suits, black shirts, skinny striped ties. They have a reverence for the formal Classical style and for formal Modernism as well." Read More...

"Yet on stage they completely transform and generate energy as dangerously electric as a live wire. They create a thrilling, dynamic sound that is at once bold, fearless, poignant, rich and soulful. Their sound is at the core of what makes them so captivating to see and hear live." Read More...

"The Calders -- now an even more self-confident, polished powerhouse of a group than ever -- produced a warm, beautiful amplified string tone ..." Read More...

"The Calder Quartet -- violinists Ben Jacobson and Andrew Bulbrook, violist Jonathan Moerschel, cellist Eric Byers -- grows in depth and expressivity, as chamber ensembles must." Read More...

"The Calder's sound is American -- big, bold, firm, clean." Read More...

"These Calders, all four USC-taught and -mellowed, are ripening into one of our prime resources." Read More...

"The group can play. First heard several years ago at the Laguna Chamber Music Festival, these players have grown into a first-rate ensemble. Its performance of Ravel's demanding quartet proved suave and polished, stressing its substance over splash. Rather than a bit of atmospheric Impressionism, it emerged as a tightly-knit, classically structured argument. The phrasing was warmly fluid and unified, the dovetailing of lines seamless, the rhythmic underpinning vivacious." Read More...

"One sensed a complete understanding of the piece in their sensitive interweaving. The musical conversation flowed smoothly without exaggeration but with a well-spoken pointedness and abiding intensity. Technically accomplished one and all, they made it look easy."

"The Calder performed splendidly.... The Haydn - an amazing work, with a slow movement that knocks on Romanticism's door - was capitally played.... Los Angeles needs a resident quartet; on the strength of this one hearing, the Calders are worthy of consideration."