POIESIS QUARTET

2025 Grand Prize Winner of the Banff International String Quartet Competition, the Poiesis Quartet brings a remarkable diversity of styles to the stage. With this program, they show equal mastery of the driving rhythms of Prokofiev, the poetry of late Beethoven, and the transformative musical landscape of Canadian composer Kevin Lau.



Prokofiev's first String Quartet opens the program, influenced by Beethoven and showcasing fierce bursts of determination along with introspective, searching melodies. The Poiesis Quartet then brings to life one of their most meaningful commissions, Canadian composer Kevin Lau’s String Quartet No. 7 entitled “Surfacing”, featured in their grand-prize-winning performance in Banff. The piece was inspired by a familial trauma when the composer’s newborn son was diagnosed with a rare liver disease; navigating the parallel processes of recovery and growth, it surfaces from the depths of strife and hardship with a renewed exuberance. To follow, “Many Many Cadences” by American composer Sky Macklay “stretches the listeners’ perception of cadences", keeping us on the edge of our seats. Finally, a sense of optimistic renewal and restoration comes with Beethoven’s final string quartet. Unexpectedly light and uplifting in its overall tone, his pensive side is nonetheless also revealed. In the final movement, he writes cryptically the following motto: “Must it be? – It must be, it must be!”