Balourdet Quartet Closes Out Quogue Chamber Music

The celebrated Balourdet Quartet returns for the closing concert of Quogue Chamber Music’s 15th season. The quartet performs on Saturday, September 7, at 7:30 p.m. at Quogue Community Hall.

Balourdet Quartet produces both emotionally intense and intimate moments on international stages. Its unique closeness and willingness to take creative risks earned it the 2024 Avery Fisher Career Grant, as well as Chamber Music America’s 2024 Cleveland Quartet Award.

With more than 70 concerts per season, recent highlights include the Balourdet’s debuts at Carnegie and Wigmore Halls, and new string quartets by composers Karim Al-Zand and Paul Novak through grants from Chamber Music America (2021) and the Barlow Foundation (2023). They are currently the Graduate Quartet in Residence at the prestigious Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University and are recent graduates of the New England Conservatory’s Professional String Quartet Program.

The Balourdet journey began in 2018 in the mountains of New Mexico at the Taos School of Music, where violinists Justin DeFilippis, Angela Bae, and cellist Russell Houston first bonded as friends over long evenings of chamber music, luxurious peppermint schnapps and extravagant meals created by chef extraordinaire Antoine Balourdet, a renaissance man with an exceptional love of life and music. It was the friendships, a shared passion for music and food, and gratitude for the role the festival played in the formation of the quartet, that inspired the members to name the ensemble in Chef Balourdet’s honor. Soon thereafter, DeFilippis, Bae and Houston joined with violist Benjamin Zannoni at Rice University, and the Balourdet Quartet was formed. Their September 7 program in Quogue will include works by Haydn, Mendelssohn and Smetana.

Tickets to the Quogue Chamber Music performance by Balourdet Quartet are $50 ($110 includes post-concert celebration with the artists) and $5 for students. Quogue Community Hall is at 125 Jessup Avenue in Quogue. For details, visit quoguechambermusic.org.