Biography
The West End String Quartet came together in the fall of 2005 because of their shared passion for chamber music. Since then, WESQ has been entertaining audiences across New England with an exciting and varied repertoire of chamber music. Current members are Jessica Meyer and Sarah Washburn, violins, John Biatowas, viola, and Carlynn Savot, cello.
WESQ strives to bring new and uncommon repertoire to their concerts, pairing them with traditional works. Each concert includes spoken notes that give a personal perspective to each piece, making unfamiliar works accessible to new audiences as well as seasoned classical music-lovers. Highlights of recent years include the culmination of the Ives Vocal Marathon Project and the premieres of James T. Lindsay's Second String Quartet and Dan Román's Sonora Complexidad.
Strong advocates of contemporary music, the quartet collaborated with Ruby Fulton in 2006 for the first performance of The Slow Revolution. Repeat performances of this work were sponsored by an Encore grant from the ACF. In the summer of 2007, the quartet performed at the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival in Colorado as part of the Young Artist Program. In addition to concerts with festival musicians, the quartet presented outreach and childrens concerts.
In past seasons, the quartet has performed at St. James's Episcopal Church in West Hartford, The Universalist Church of West Hartford, on the River Crossings Concert Series, and with the Arts Institute of Western Maine. The quartet also collaborated with Weselyan University faculty and members of Bang on a Can All-Stars and Connecticut Opera on the Ives Vocal Marathon project led by Neely Bruce at Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT.