The Tesla Quartet will perform in Sacred Heart Chapel on Tuesday, September 29, at 7 p.m. The concert will include Haydn’s Quartet in F minor, Shaw’s Punctum & Valencia, and Dvorak’s String Quartet in A flat major. The performance is free.

Dubbed “technically superb” by The Strad, the Tesla Quartet has garnered top prizes at numerous international competitions, including the Gold Medal at the 2012 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, Third Prize at the 6th International Joseph Haydn Chamber Music Competition in Vienna, Third Prize at the 2012 London International String Quartet Competition, and the Prize for the International Summer Academy for Chamber Music Niedersachsen at the 2013 Bordeaux International String Quartet Competition.

The quartet was formed at The Juilliard School in 2008 and quickly established itself as one of the most promising young ensembles in New York, winning Second Prize at the J.C. Arriaga Chamber Music Competition only a few months after its inception. The London Evening Standard called their rendition of the Debussy Quartet “a subtly coloured performance that balanced confidently between intimacy and extraversion.” From 2009 to 2012 the quartet held a fellowship as the Graduate String Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Colorado-Boulder, where they studied with the world-renowned Takács Quartet.

The group has performed in Austria, Canada, England, and France. American appearances include concerts in Alabama, California, Kansas, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, and Vermont.

Members of the ensemble are Edwin Kaplan (viola), Michelle Lie (violin), Serafim Smigelskiy (cello), and Ross Snyder (violin).

Community involvement and outreach are integral parts of the Tesla Quartet’s mission, and the group has brought inspiring music to children’s hospitals, soup kitchens, libraries, retirement communities, and schools. The ensemble also spent three years in partnership with the Aspen Music Festival’s Musical Odysseys Reaching Everyone program (M.O.R.E), providing lessons, master classes, workshops, and performances for young string players in Colorado’s Roaring Fork Valley.