To kick off our Season 8 Chamber Series, we present “The First Course,” a program of critically-acclaimed string quartets throughout the ages. We begin with Grazyna Bacewicz’s Fourth Quartet, which was entered into the International String Quartet Competition in 1951 at the behest of the Polish Composers’ Union. It was hugely popular and won first prize by a landslide, cementing Bacewicz’s place as one of the foremost Polish composers of all time. We’ll continue with Voodoo Dolls by acclaimed living composer Jessie Montgomery. Originally written for a dance company, this piece features influences from west African drumming and elements of improvisation. We finish off the program with Fanny Mendelssohn’s one and only String Quartet in E-flat Major, written later in her life and likely featured at her famous “Sunday Musical Salons” in Berlin.