The Isidore Electrifies

Published on June 20, 2025 by Susan Miron for The Boston Musical Intelligencer.

Each of the times I have heard the Isidore String Quartet, I’ve been completely bowled over. Founded in 2019, they’ve won the big prizes (2023 Avery Fisher Career Grant, the 2022 Banff International String Quartet Competition) and, now in their 20s, have unquestionably risen to the top of the very crowded young quartet scene. Violinists Adrian Steele, Phoenix Avalon, violist Devin Moore, and cellist Joshua McClendon would seem to be predestined to play together. Their chemistry and goals are admirable, their performances electrifying.

The Isidore’s second appearance at Rockport, this Thursday evening, included the Ravel Quartet and a late Beethoven, but Steven Banks’s (b.1993)  Reflections and Exaltations for soprano saxophone and string quartet, featuring the composer as the masterful saxophone soloist, realty stole the show.

Composed in 1902-03 (when he was just 28), the Ravel is one of the most enduringly popular quartets. Composing it just before Scheherazade, Ravel dedicated it to Gabriel Fauré; it made its auspicious debut in 1904. Annotator Keith Horner’s pointed out that Ravel was soaking in the music of Claude Debussy, 12 years his senior. He attended the first 30 performances of Debussy’s Pelleas et Melisande and knew Debussy’s earlier string quartet well. Thus,  “…some of its lifeblood carried over into his own piece. From Debussy, he borrowed the use of Eastern exoticism and the modality of the harmony throughout all four movements.” Even its stunning second pizzicato movement makes an appearance in Debussy’s sole example in the genre.

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