Madeline Island Chamber Music Emerging Artists Quartet-in-Residence: Lírios Quartet
MacPhail is excited to welcome the Lírios Quartet as our 2023 Madeline Island Chamber Music Emerging Artists Quartet in Residence!
Composed of violinists Benjamin Goldstein and Maggie Brady, violist Yuri Santos, and cellist Chas Barnard, the quartet formed in 2022 at the University of Colorado Boulder, where they studied under the mentorship of the world-renowned Takács Quartet. As the CU Boulder’s Graduate String Quartet in Residence, they engaged with developments in new music, taking part in the Pendulum New Music series with two premieres in the 2022-2023 season. They collaborated with the Sohap Ensemble and Art Song Colorado in a new chamber opera commission, “Colorado Sky,” that included a workshopping residency at the ATLAS Institute in January 2023.
The quartet specializes in outreach events, performing extensively in schools and retirement homes. They enjoy the opportunity to share what they do with these diverse audiences and look forward to playing for a wide range of patrons during their time in the Twin Cities.
Meet the Lírios Quartet
Formed in 2022 at the University of Colorado Boulder, the Lírios Quartet comprises four emerging artists who have come together under the mentorship of the Takács Quartet. As the current Graduate String Quartet-in-Residence, they are engaged with developments in new music, taking part in the Pendulum New Music concert series with two premieres in the 2022-2023 season. Additionally, they collaborated with Sohap Ensemble and Art Song Colorado in the commissioning of Colorado Sky, a new children’s chamber opera involving the reintroduction of gray wolves into the state of Colorado.
Dedicated educators and community outreach advocates, the Lírios Quartet often work with schools in the Boulder/Denver area with the goal of introducing chamber music to the younger generation. They recently took part in the Aspen Music Festival and School Musical Connections residency in Colorado’s Roaring Fork Valley, where the quartet visited local elementary and middle schools, reaching more than 675 students, also presenting a recital at the Basalt Regional Library.
Complementing their studies at CU-Boulder with the Takács, Lírios Quartet have attended the Robert Mann String Quartet Institute and Juilliard String Quartet Seminar, where they were coached by members of the American, Brentano, Emerson, and Juilliard Quartets. In the summer of 2023, they served as the Emerging Artists Quartet-in-Residence at Madeline Island Chamber Music and the String Quartet Fellowship at Music in the Vineyards. The Lírios Quartet are recipients of the Dorothy Richard Starling Foundation Scholarship, the Takács Society String Scholarship, and the Margaret Steed Memorial Fund.
Members
Benjamin Goldstein is a native New Yorker and a recent bachelor of music graduate of the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music where he studied violin performance with Alexander Kerr. He has attended various summer festivals including the Bowdoin International Music Festival, Innsbrook Festival, Sarasota Music Festival and the Music Academy of the West—where he participated in a string quartet seminar with the Takács Quartet—, and has worked with prominent conductors such as Larry Rachleff, Michael Tilson Thomas and Marin Alsop. A past member of Face the Music at the Kaufman Music Center, Goldstein worked under the guidance of the Kronos Quartet and was dedicated to studying and performing works by living composers. In his free time, Goldstein produces and composes electronic music.
Born in Boulder Colorado, Maggie Brady began taking violin lessons at age 3, developing a strong passion for chamber music at a young age. Brady earned a bachelor of music from the University of Colorado Boulder where she studied with Harumi Rhodes. She is an active member at the Icicle Creek Chamber Music Institute, closely collaborating with renowned faculty artists on various chamber music works. Besides the violin, Brady loves puzzles, crocheting and spending time with her beautiful dog, Misty.
A native of Brazil, violist and violinist Yuri Santos began his musical studies at age 8 under the tutelage of his father, Ênio Antunes. An avid chamber musician, Santos is a former member of the Dior Quartet during their 2019-2020 Kuttner Student String Quartet Residency at Indiana University, mentored by the Pacifica Quartet. As winner of the 2019 Bonn Quartet Competition, he was invited to serve a week-long residency at the Beethoven-Haus Bonn and to attend the Britten-Pears Chamber Music Lab in Snape Maltings, United Kingdom, in 2020. Most recently, he was awarded first prize at the Macauley Chamber Music Competition and attended the Music Academy of the West as a fellow, taking part in a string quartet seminar led by the Takács Quartet. Santos earned a bachelor of music degree and a performer diploma from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, studying with Mark Holloway, Kevork Mardirossian and Mauricio Fuks.
Cellist Chas Barnard is an active performer, music educator and arts administrator based in Boulder, Colorado. Previously, he was a three-year teaching assistant and lecturer in the Division of Continuing Education at CU Boulder. In the summers of 2019-2021, Barnard was a fellow at the Music Academy of the West where he won the London Symphony Orchestra—Keston MAX (Music Academy Exchange) audition and performed as a finalist of the Duo Competition. He returned to the Music Academy of the West in 2022 as chamber music specialist, overseeing the festival’s chamber music program. Barnard is also a founding member of the Sohap Ensemble—a soprano-cello duet with his wife, soprano Sabina Balsamo—which collaborates with artists and composers on commissions, recordings and intimate, out-of-the-box musical experiences. Barnard enjoys spending time with his wife Sabina and his dog Jimmy, watching the Metropolitan Opera on-demand and taking in the natural beauty of Colorado.