Meet Your Musician Bravo! Vail Edition: Dover Quartet

Editor’s Note: The Vail Daily is showcasing area musicians in a series called “Meet Your Musician” so you can learn a bit more about the people behind the tunes. In the “Meet Your Musician: Bravo! Vail Edition” we give you a chance to meet some of the artists coming to the valley to perform during the Bravo! Vail Music Festival this summer.

Q: What is your name/your ensemble’s/orchestra’s name?

A: We are the Dover Quartet. We formed at the Curtis Institute of Music, and our name pays tribute to “Dover Beach” a song written by fellow Curtis alumnus Samuel Barber.

Q: What instrument(s) do you play?

A: Joel Link, violin; Bryan Lee, violin; Hezekiah Leung, viola; Camden Shaw, cello

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Q: How long have you been performing? How long have you been with your current orchestra or ensemble?

A: We formed in 2008 with Joel, Bryan, and Camden as founding members. Hezekiah has been touring with the group this year and violist Julianne Lee will be joining the quartet in September 2023.

Q: How long have you been coming to the Bravo! Vail Music Festival?

A: Our first performance at Bravo! Vail was in 2014, and we look forward to visiting every time we get the opportunity! We’ve made some amazing memories here in the summertime.

Q: Where do you perform when you are not in Vail?

A: We are the Penelope P. Watkins Ensemble in Residence at Curtis, but we travel frequently and play concerts here in the U.S. and abroad.

Q: What’s your dream venue?

A: There are so many amazing venues that we’ve played in, so it’s difficult to name just one! Wigmore Hall in London is one of the world’s most sublime chamber music spaces. We also love playing at the Kimmel Center’s Perelman Theater in our hometown of Philadelphia. There’s something about the home crowd energy that is always exhilarating. Outside of traditional venues, we also love the intimacy of house concerts and smaller spaces – it harkens back to the roots of the art form, literally music to be played in a “chamber” or room.

Q: What other styles of music do you/does the ensemble listen to or like to play?  

A: We all love listening to many different genres of music like hip-hop, rap and jazz, amongst others. We have gotten to record many pop covers in collaboration with the Brooklyn Duo, which has always been a blast.

Q: Do you have any advice for young people learning to play music?

A: “Every young musician should be developing their ‘voice’ or internal sound in tandem with their skills on an instrument. While instrumental students don’t have to take voice lessons, the most direct way to get in touch with their inner sound is to get comfortable singing. If they sing everything they play, they can really listen to the details of their imagination coming out,” said Camden Shaw, cellist.

Q: What inspired you to pursue a career in music?

A: “For me, music was one of the only disciplines that made me feel like my whole brain was being challenged at the same time – from emotions to physical skill to intellectual skill, it was so stimulating I couldn’t imagine living without it! I’m very lucky to get to perform music for a living,” said Camden Shaw, cellist.

Q: What is your/your ensemble’s favorite piece or composer to play?

A: “As a group, we perform the works of so many different composers, but I think one that stands out as special is Dvořák. He always manages to draw out incredible energy from us all in concert. In addition to Dvořák, some of my personal favorites are Beethoven and Schubert,” said Joel Link, first violinist.

Q: Anything else we should have asked, anything else you’d like to share?

A: We are excited for the Vail community to enjoy our concert on June 27 at 7 p.m. at the Vilar Performing Arts Center in Beaver Creek. Our program features wonderful works by Haydn and Schubert alongside the renowned String Quartet No. 1 by the celebrated African American composer George Walker. Its slow movement became especially well-known in an orchestral arrangement titled “Lyric for Strings.”