Esmé – borrowed from an old French word meaning ‘being loved‘ – is a German-based group, comprised of four Korean musicians who share a passion for music, the arts, and life. The Quartet is joined by pianist Yekwon Sunwoo, Gold Medalist at the fifteenth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition.

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Esmé Quartet with Yekwon Sunwoo

Beall Concert Hall

Clarinet, violin, and percussion trio F-PLUS, perform new works by Princeton University graduate student composers Kennedy Taylor Dixon, Bobby Ge, Zoë Gorman, Soo Yeon Lyuh, Tom Morrison, and Gemma Peacocke.

F-plus

Princeton University

Joined together from Israel, Korea-Canada, Saint Lucia, and the United States, the Dior String Quartet is the Quartet-in-Residence at the Glenn Gould School, Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. We welcomed them to Tippet Rise in the summer of 2021 for several weeks in which they also participated from afar in the Banff Evolution: Quartet 2021 Residency during the pandemic. We are thrilled to finally host them for their official Tippet Rise concert debut where members Noa Sarid (violin), Tobias Elser (violin), Caleb Georges (viola), and Joanne Yesol Choi (cello) will present a diverse program featuring works by Kevin Lau, one of Canada’s most versatile and sought-after young composers; Soo Yeon Lyuh, known for demonstrating her compositions by recording videos of herself playing the haegeum, a two-stringed Korean bowed instrument; Dinuk Wijeratne, the Sri-Lankan-Canadian whose work The Disappearance of Lisa Gerardini is inspired by the real-life theft of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa from the Louvre Museum in 1911; and the four movements of Maurice Ravel’s String Quartet in F Major, the composer and pianist’s only string quartet.

Dior Quartet

Tippet Rise Art Center

Free conversation: An inside look at the Kronos Fifty for the Future project from the perspective of both composers and performers with Kronos founder David Harrington, composer/instrumentalists Rafiq Bhatia (guitar), Soo Yeon Lyuh (haegeum), Paul Wiancko (Kronos Quartet cellist), and others.

Kronos Festival Lab – Conversation: About Kronos Fifty for The Future

SFJAZZ Center

Featuring compositions by Guillermo Galindo, Rhiannon Giddens, Angélique Kidjo, Soo Yeon Lyuh, Kala Ramnath, Yevgeniy Sharlat, Henry Threadgill, Mario Galeano Toro, Merlijn Twaalfhoven, and Paul Wiancko.

The rich cultural diversity of the Kronos Fifty for the Future repertoire is on full display in the Kronos Festival’s lead-off program, with works by composers representing Benin, Colombia, India, Korea, Mexico, the Netherlands, Russia, and the United States. 

Special guests include San Francisco’s own Friction Quartet; Korean-born composer and haegeum virtuoso Soo Yeon Lyuh, joining Kronos for her own work Yessori; and Kronos cellist Paul Wiancko joining New York’s Aizuri Quartet (winners of Chamber Music America’s 2022 Cleveland Quartet Award) for his composition Only Ever Us.

kronos Festival - Program 1 (2023)

Princeton Second-Year Graduate Student composers—Hope Littwin, Soo Yeon Lyuh, Christian Quiñones, and Justin Wright—present new works written in response to the works of established composers as part of their PhD General Examinations.

Princeton Sound Kitchen: Generals Concert

Taplin Auditorium

After performing Professor Donnacha Dennehy’s Land of Winter in September, celebrated 20-person ensemble Alarm Will Sound returns to perform works by Princeton University graduate student composers including Gulli Björnsson, Dai Wei, Liam Elliot, Hope Littwin, Soo Yeon Lyuh, Christian Quiñones, Elijah Daniel Smith, Max Vinetz, Justin Wright.

Princeton Sound Kitchen: Alarm Will Sound

Richardson Auditorium

Based in Germany, the award-winning Esme Quartet has rapidly gained a worldwide reputation as a chamber ensemble of exceptional artistry and achievement. Formed in 2016 at the Hochschule für Musik in Cologne, Germany by four Korean musicians, friends since their youth, the Esme has been praised for its warm sound and powerful stage presence. With shared common interests and passions in music, the arts, and life, the quartet brings together the performers’ brilliant and distinct musical personalities to form a cohesive, close-knit group that is passionately dedicated to the string quartet repertoire. For their Segerstrom Center debut, the Esmé Quartet will be joined by composer and haegeum virtuoso, Soo Yeon Lyuh.

Soo Yeon Lyuh

Events

Feb 25, 2024

Esmé Quartet with Yekwon Sunwoo · Oregon Bach Festival

Sep 12, 2023

F-plus · Princeton University Music Department

Sep 3, 2023

Dior Quartet · Tippet Rise Art Center

Jun 24, 2023

Kronos Festival Lab – Conversation: About Kronos Fifty for The Future · San Francisco Jazz

Jun 22, 2023

kronos Festival - Program 1 (2023) · San Francisco Jazz

Future and recently performed repertoire

Haegeum in Yessori: A Fantasia for Haegeum by Lyuh

Segerstrom Center For The Arts

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