The Los Angeles-based Calder Quartet and the Belgian violist
Dimitri Murrath have each been named as recipients of Avery Fisher
Career Grants for 2014. Worth $25,000, the grants give professional
assistance to instrumentalists judged to have exceptional career
potential.
Formed in 1998 at the Thornton School of Music, the Calder Quartet
(pictured) comprises violinists Benjamin Jacobson and Andrew
Bulbrook, violist Jonathan Moerschel, and cellist Eric Byers. It
has commissioned works from Terry Riley, Thomas Adès, Christopher
Rouse and Peter Eötvös, and has worked with a wide range of
collaborators from pianist Gloria Cheng to the rock band Vampire
Weekend. The quartet was featured on the cover of the
March 2013 edition of The Strad.
Dimitri Murrath graduated from the New England Conservatory (NEC)
in 2008, the same year he received the first prize at the Primrose
International Viola Competition. He has worked with artists
including Gidon Kremer, Miriam Fried, Laurence Lesser, Donald
Weilerstein and Kim Kashkashian, his tutor at the NEC. He has
commissioned solo works from Edwin Roxburgh and Michel
Lysight.
The executive committee also announced that pianist Charlie
Albright would receive a career grant this year. Fellow pianist
Jeremy Denk was named the winner of the $75,000 Avery Fisher
Prize.
Previous recipients of Avery Fisher Career Grants have included the
violinists Ani Kavafian (1976), Joseph Swensen (1982) and Joshua
Bell (1986), and cellists Sharon Robinson (1980), Carter Brey
(1983) and Matt Haimovitz (1986).
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Photo: Autumn de Wilde
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