String Theory welcomes Decoda Cello Quartet for chamber, family concerts

Hamilton Berry

Claire Bryant

Caitlin Sullivan

Yves Dharamraj

A weeklong residency in Chattanooga will give the Decoda Cello Quartet chances to showcase the performers' fun and formal sides.

The four visiting musicians - Hamilton Berry, Claire Bryant, Caitlin Sullivan and Yves Dharamraj - have two concerts on their agenda as part of the String Theory chamber music series, as well as educational workshops and interactive performances with students.

The cello quartet is part of the larger Decoda, a New York-based chamber collective of 30 young classical musicians regarded as some of the brightest talents of their generation.

According to press material, Decoda became Carnegie Hall's first affiliate ensemble after collaborating as fellows in Ensemble ACJW, a two-year artist training program of Carnegie Hall, The Juilliard School and the Weill Music Institute.

The New York Times has praised the group of virtuoso musicians as "refreshing in the extreme."

This season, the Decoda Cello Quartet is continuing "last season's look at works that explore themes of whimsy, storytelling and images from the natural world."

Their String Theory concert is scheduled Tuesday, Jan. 17, at the Hunter Museum of American Art, which produces the series with Lee University. The program will include music by Franchomme, Cornish, Frank and Ravel. Pianist Gloria Chien, String Theory's founder, will join the cellists in Menotti's Suite for Two Cellos and Piano.

The Decoda musicians will spend the rest of the week visiting schools and community venues, then present a workshop on "How To Frame a Piece of Music" with students at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga on Friday evening, Jan. 20.

Their visit will culminate Saturday, Jan. 21, with the annual String Theory Family Concert at the Hunter Museum. "Four Crayons" will illustrate how the sound of the cello helps to create a musical picture, with the performers showing how much versatility of sound is possible when drawing from four of the same instrument.

The concert will be followed by an instrument petting zoo hosted by the String Theory Youth Initiative.

The concert is dedicated to Woodmore Elementary School, and all proceeds will be donated to the Woodmore Fund to provide assistance to families whose children were on the bus that crashed in November.

The musicians

Hamilton Berry: A Nashville native, Berry has been active in a variety of performing, arranging and composing projects. He has performed with the Toomai String Quintet, Founders, A Far Cry, Novus NY, Con Brio Ensemble, Ensemble ACJW, the Orchestra of St. Luke's and the Gotham Chamber Opera; collaborated with pop artists including Debbie Harry, Bjork, Becca Stevens, Vampire Weekend, FUN. and Cults; and written and arranged music for Speed Bump, a string trio co-founded with violist Nathan Schram and cellist Eric Allen. He recently joined the teaching roster of Musicambia, which offers music lessons to inmates at Sing Sing Correctional Facility.

Claire Bryant: As a founding member of Decoda, she has collaborated with world-class artists such as Daniel Hope, Anthony Marwood, Emanuel Ax, Sir Simon Rattle, Dawn Upshaw, the Weilerstein Trio and members of the Peabody Trio, Saint Lawrence String Quartet and Danish String Quartet, among others. She regularly performs with acclaimed chamber ensembles in NYC such as Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Novus NY and Ensemble ACJW. The 2010 recipient of the Robert Sherman McGraw Hill Companies award for excellence in community outreach and music education, she is a graduate of The Juilliard School and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Her diverse career includes performing chamber music, contemporary music and the solo cello repertoire.

Caitlin Sullivan: A chamber, orchestral and contemporary music performer based in New York City, she has been recognized by the New York Concert Review as having "the understanding and emotional projection of a true artist." As a member of Decoda, she has helped to lead educational outreach projects in South Africa and Japan, as well as curate a chamber music performance at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She also is a member of the Knights, which has afforded her the opportunity to travel extensively in the U.S. and abroad, performing with artists such as Yo-Yo Ma, Gil Shaham, Bela Fleck, the Joshua Redman Quartet and others. She also is a member of the IRIS Orchestra in Memphis.

Yves Dharamraj: As soloist, chamber musician, teaching artist and composer, this Franco-American cellist has played major stages of the United States and abroad, including appearances at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center (New York); the Kennedy Center (Washington, D.C.), Orchestra Hall, Ravinia Festival and Chicago Cultural Center (Chicago); Disney Hall (Los Angeles); SpoletoUSA (Charleston, S.C.), and internationally in Canada, Germany, Dominican Republic, Panama and Thailand. He co-founded New Docta International Music Festival in 2013 to bring world-class musicians to Argentina. He is a founding member of Decoda and the genre-defying Bohemian Trio.