ULYSSES QUARTET

CHRISTINA BOUEY

violin

RHIANNON BANERDT

violIN

PETER DUDEK 

VIOLA

GRACE HO

cello

PAOLO BARTOLANI

Piano

OPENING CONCERT 
at 

Castello di Borghese Vineyard

   Sunday, April 27th, 2025, 5:00pm 
Ulysses Quartet
Paolo Bartolani, piano

​Music by
Bach, Respighi, Beethoven
​

BUY TICKETS / make a riservation

​​We're kicking off the Rites of Spring concert season by renewing the 
​partnership with Castello di Borghese Vineyard
It's an exciting event of music, spring celebration and appreciation of the North Fork agricultural scene.
Doors open at 4pm. You will receive a glass of wine and can walk through the vineyard to enjoy the natural landscape.

Attendees can also come earlier at the vineyard for a tasting flight or some wine + bites ahead of the performance.  Castello di Borghese Vineyard normal business hours is open from 11am to 5pm.


Description
In 1902 Respighi returned from Russia where he had studied with Rimsky-Korsakov and wrote his Quintet in F minor. The work was intended for Bruno Mugellini, also a student of Martucci, a concert pianist and teacher at the high school in Bologna. The esteem that bound Maestro and student was extraordinary, so much so that one day Martucci said of Ottorino: "Respighi? He is not a student; he is a maestro!". In the Quintet itself, so full of pathos, explicit communication, melodic and expressive gestures, there are many traces and scenarios inherited from Martucci's language, in the sense of an ideal continuity between the two works.
​
Music Program
(Duration is two hours with intermission)
​
JOHAN SEBASTIAN BACH: CONCERTO in F minor, BWV 1056
I. Allegro 
II. Largo
III. Presto

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN:  String Quartet Op.18 No.1 (1799)
I. (Allegro con brio (F major)
II. Adagio affettuoso ed appassionato (D minor)
III. Scherzo. Allegro molto (F major)
IV. Allegro (F major)

-Intermission-

OTTORINO RESPIGHI (1879 - 1936): Piano Quintet in F minor (1902)
I. Allegro
II. Andantino
III. Vivacissimo

Public Funds come from the Statewide Community Regrant program of the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature and administered by Huntington Arts Council.  Public Funds come from the Suffolk County Omnibus Grant, ​sponsored by Legislator Al Krupski and with the support of the Suffolk County Legislature.   

This concert is presented by
Rites of Spring Music Festival
in collaboration with
Castello di Borghese Vineyard

​Ulysses Quartet 
Christina Bouey, violin
Rhiannon Banerdt, violin
Peter Dudek, viola
Grace Ho, cello

​The Ulysses Quartet has been praised for their “textural versatility,” “grave beauty” and “the kind of chemistry many quartets long for, but rarely achieve” (The Strad), as well as their “avid enthusiasm ... [with] chops to back up their passion” (San Diego Story), “delivered with a blend of exuberance and polished artistry” (The Buffalo News).
Founded in the summer of 2015, the group won the grand prize and gold medal in the senior string division of the 2016 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition and first prize in the 2018 Schoenfeld International String Competition. In 2017, the quartet finished first in the American Prize and won second prize at the Osaka International Chamber Music Competition. They were winners of the Vietnam International Music Competition in 2019. Ulysses garnered a career development grant in the 2016 Banff International String Quartet Competition. 
Consisting of violinists Christina Bouey and Rhiannon Banerdt, violist Colin Brookes and cellist Grace Ho, the quartet’s members hail from Canada, the United States and Taiwan. They have performed in such prestigious halls as Carnegie Hall, the Harbin Grand Theatre, Jordan Hall and the Taiwan National Recital Hall. Recent performance highlights include their debut at Carnegie Hall along with appearances at the Chautauqua Institution (New York), Sociedad Filarmónica de Bilbao (Spain), Ciclo de Cámara y Solistas in Salamanca, the Picasso Museum in Málaga, Teatro Mayor Julio Santo Domingo in Bogotá, Highlands Cashiers Festival (North Carolina), Music Mountain (Connecticut) with pianist Tanya Bannister, Chelsea Music Festival and PS21 (NY), National Gallery of Art (DC), Jasper Arts Center (Indiana), and San Juan Chamber Music Festival (Colorado). The 22-23 season also features their Mexico City debut at UNAM, along with performances for Sociedad Filarmónica in Lima, Gretna Music, Yale School of Music with guitarist Ben Verdery, Kansas City Friends of Chamber Music, Fundación Juan March (Madrid), Sociedad Filarmónica in Valencia, Basel Kammermusik, and Chamber Music Society of Utica (NY). Other notable engagements have included the Buffalo Chamber Music Society, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Premiere Performances Hong Kong, National Arts Centre (Ottawa), and Cemal Reşit Rey Concert Hall (Istanbul)
In spring 2023, Ulysses visited Louisiana State University for a residency. At Juilliard from 2019 to 2022, they were the Lisa Arnhold Fellows, serving as the School’s Graduate Resident String Quartet for 3 years. From 2016 to 2019, Ulysses was in residence at the Louis Moreau Institute in New Orleans, working with composer Morris Rosenzweig.
Ulysses recently completed work on their debut album, to be released later this year, and four more albums are forthcoming in the near future, including collaborations with flutist Ransom Wilson and guitarist Ben Verdery, as well as albums of quartet works. As a special project, the group will record the quartets of composer Joseph Summer at Mechanics Hall in Worcester, Massachusetts, over the next several years.
The group’s name pays homage to Homer’s hero Odysseus and his 10-year voyage home. Additionally, the quartet’s members live in close proximity to the resting place of former U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant in Upper Manhattan. The Ulysses String Quartet believes intensely in the power of music to inspire, enlighten and bring people together. This is the guiding principle of the Ulysses Quartet Foundation, dedicated to the performance and promotion of classical music of the past and present day to benefit the broadest possible audience of music lovers and potential music lovers by expanding their understanding and appreciation of the musical arts. Ulysses aims to use this platform to raise the voices of underrepresented BIPOC and female composers. The quartet also offers interactive programs and workshops for all ages that serve to demystify the traditional repertoire while introducing audiences to diverse programming. Their programs enable participants to learn about the inner workings of a string quartet and to explore the connections between classical music and our world today.
The members of Ulysses hold degrees from the Juilliard School, Manhattan School of Music, New England Conservatory and Yale University. The musicians perform on instruments and bows graciously on loan from the Maestro Foundation and private donors. Ulysses is grateful for the support of Shar Music and Connolly Music as YSOA ambassadors.
Keep up with Ulysses Quartet on their website Ulyssesquartet.com, as well as their social media channels on Facebook, Instagram and Youtube.



​
Paolo Bartolani,
​pianist, Founder and Artistic Director of Rites of Spring Music Festival
Paolo Bartolani is a pianist, musicologist and music manager, working in both classical and contemporary music. He graduated in 1989 from the Santa Cecilia Music Conservatory in Rome (Italy). He studied with Eduardo Hubert, and after graduation, with Charles Rosen, György Sándor and Andor Foldes. He also studied French piano repertoire with Germaine Mounier at the Ecole Normale de Musique in Paris. In 1994, he received his Master in Musicology of the 20th century degree under the direction of Hugues Dufourt at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales in collaboration with IRCAM / Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. Paolo performs as a soloist and also as a member of chamber ensembles in Europe and United States.
He writes articles for the musicology journals Sonus-Materials for Contemporary Music and Music/Reality. In 2006, he created a Master Degree Program in Cultural Enterprise Administration at the University of Perugia, where he also teaches.
At the Venice Biennale, from 2008 to 2012, Paolo was the General Coordinator of ENPARTS - European Network of Performing Arts, which promotes the creation of new works in dance, music and theater by young artists. From 2009 to 2014 he was the Director of the Résonnance Italy, a nonprofit organization based in Switzerland, where he was responsible for its artistic and humanitarian program, "bringing music to places where it is not heard."  The members of the organization – singers, instrumentalists, conductors – have performed more than two hundred concerts in hospitals, nursing homes and prisons in order to promote musical sensibilities and share the joy of music.
He has been the General Coordinator of Music Up Close Network at Santa Cecilia National Academy in Rome. The Network includes seven European orchestras who promote new orchestral works and support a new generation of musicians to connect with young audiences.
He founded the Rites of Spring Music Fest in 2016 to promote classical and contemporary music on the North Fork of Long Island, and to combine music, history and the natural environment. The Festival currently is a non-profit organization 501c3 and he is the Artistic Director and Responsible for developing the Festival’s program. 

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