The Calidore String Quartet presents their first album on Signum Records – a collection of quartets by Janacek, Prokofiev, Golijov and Mendelssohn. The pieces were the products of four compelling personal narratives: an escape from the Nazi eastern offensive in WWII, a life caught in the crosshairs of a surge of violence in the Middle East, the sudden death of one’s closest friend and the struggle of being trapped in a loveless marriage. Felix Mendelssohn and Leos Janacek turned to their art to find an outlet for their personal grief while Sergei Prokofiev and Osvaldo Golijov used their compositions to make sense of a world that was turned upside down by violent conflict. Because of and despite these origins the works are imbued with emotional potency, and the quartet hopes that that these works can provide “a message of hope because they illuminate the human potential to create beauty even in the darkest of circumstances.”