The Restoration Concert on Sunday, Nov. 19, at 4 p.m. will feature the New Hollywood String Quartet performing Tchaikovsky’s String Quartet No. 1 in D Major op. 11. Cellist Brian Schuldt and violist Meredith Crawford will join the NHSQ for Arnold Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht (“Transfigured Night”) op. 4 for String Sextet.
The concert is presented by the Restoration Concerts Committee of the Friends of the South Pasadena Public Library and will be held in the historic Library Community Room at 1115 El Centro St. in South Pasadena. Tickets will be available at the door for $25.
The New Hollywood String Quartet had its debut concert in Los Angeles on Jan. 9, 2001, and has been performing to critical acclaim ever since. Inspired by the great Hollywood String Quartet from more than half a century ago, the current members of the NHSQ are likewise premiere performers of their generation. The quartet members are Tereza Stanislav, violin, Rafael Rishik, violin, Robert Brophy, viola, and Andrew Shulman, cello.
As one of the top string quartets in Southern California, they are well known guests at many of the most prestigious concert series in the Los Angeles area. Its members reside in Los Angeles and have recorded hundreds of film scores, are members of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and have decades of chamber music experience between them. The NHSQ was featured on the Grammy Nominated Disc, “Passing Through,” performing Gernot Wolfgang’s “String Theory” for string quartet. Their most recent recording was for Jeff Beal’s newest album “The Paper Lined Shack —Things Unseen” for string quartet.
As a founding member of the Felici Piano Trio, Schuldt has performed hundreds of critically acclaimed concerts in the United States, Europe and South America. Schuldt was the cellist of the Arcadia String Quartet, which won the grand prize of the 1995 Yellow Springs Chamber Music Competition and the Indiana University Kuttner Quartet Scholarship. He has appeared as soloist with the Oak Ridge Symphony, Auburn Symphony, Owensboro Symphony, Eastern Sierra Symphony and the Chamber Orchestra “Cantelli” of Milan, Italy. He has served as guest principal cellist for the Fresno Philharmonic and Reno Chamber Orchestra.
Crawford is a Los Angeles-based violist who consistently demonstrates her value for emotional connection with the music she performs. At the age of 22 — before the completion of her senior year at Oberlin Conservatory — she won her first orchestral audition and a seat with Pacific Symphony, an ensemble beloved in its home of Orange County. She subsequently moved up the ranks in her section, winning the assistant principal chair in 2012, followed by the principal chair — her current position — in 2018. Crawford is also an avid chamber musician and is the resident violist of the Salastina Society, one of L.A.’s most innovative, inclusive and forward-thinking musical organizations.
The Restoration Concerts Committee, a committee of the nonprofit organization, The Friends of the South Pasadena Public Library, has a goal to bring world-class music at an affordable price to the concertgoers in South Pasadena and surrounding communities. As the name suggests, net proceeds from the concerts provide restorations, enhancements and other benefits to the South Pasadena Library and Community Room.
For more information about Restoration Concerts, contact restorationconcerts@gmail.com or go to friendsofsopaslibrary.org/restoration-concerts.
First published in the November 10 print issue of the South Pasadena Review.
