Balourdet String Quartet with Adam W. Sadberry, flute
The Balourdet String Quartet are accomplished musicians, having received a 2024 Avery Fisher Career Grant as well as Chamber Music America’s 2024 Cleveland Quartet Award.
Currently the Graduate Quartet in Residence at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, they are also passionate about educating young musicians and are enthusiastic participants in our Partnerships in Education program in Westchester public schools.
Their collaboration with flutist Adam W. Sadberry promises to be a special occasion. A former member of the Detroit and Memphis symphony orchestras, Sadberry was named one of 23 “artists to watch” in 2023 by the Washington Post. A review of the Grieg Piano Concerto performed by the St. Louis Symphony noted that Sadberry’s “flute solo in the third movement’s bucolic interlude was a gem.” (Radio KDHX) Sadberry has an equally active career as a coach, mentor and speaker.e
Members of the Balourdet Quartet are Benjamin Zannoni, viola; Justin DeFilippis, violin; Russell Houston, cello; and Angela Bae, violin.
“Absolute musical perfection… full robust sound… impeccable balance” – The Boston Musical Intelligencer
Their program includes:
- Joseph Haydn: String Quartet in D Major, Op. 64, No. 5 “The Lark”
- Amy Beach: Theme and Variations for Flute and String Quartet, Op. 80 (with Adam W. Sadberry)
- Bedrich Smetana: String Quartet No. 1 in E minor, “From my Life”
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. Soon thereafter, Justin, Angela, and Russell joined with violist Benjamin Zannoni at Rice University, and the Balourdet Quartet was formed. It was the friendships, a shared passion for music and food, and gratitude for the role the Taos festival played in the formation of the quartet, that inspired the members to name the ensemble in Chef Balourdet’s honor.
Here is the Balourdet performing the final movement of Beethoven’s String Quartet in F Major, Op. 59, No. 1, “Razumovsky.”
