Artist Residency Concert: Formosa String Quartet

Now in its second season, Marlboro Music’s brings exceptional emerging chamber music ensembles to the Marlboro campus throughout the year for deep creative work and concert offerings. Each group is in residence for 1 to 3 weeks, enjoying concentrated time together in a retreat-like environment where they can rehearse new programming, prepare for recording projects, develop community engagement programming, and more. Every ensemble in residence includes at least one Marlboro Music artist, and each residency culminates with a free informal concert, in which the groups share the results of their work with our local community.

Our third 2025-26 residency concert features the Formosa String Quartet, consisting of past Marlboro Music participants David Bernat, violin and Deborah Pae, cello, as well as violinist Jasmine Lin and violist Matthew Cohen. Their performance takes place on Wednesday, January 21 at 7 pm in Ragle Hall, in the Serkin Center for the Arts (2582 South Rd, Marlboro, VT). Admission is free. Reservations are required and open approximately four weeks prior to the event.

Program to be announced

Winners of the First Prize and Amadeus Prize at the Wigmore Hall International String Quartet Competition, the has been hailed as “spellbinding” (The Strad) and “remarkably fine” (Gramophone), and has given critically acclaimed performances at the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian, the Da Camera Society of Los Angeles, the Chicago Cultural Center, the Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center, the National Concert Hall in Taipei, Wigmore Hall in London, die Glocke Bremen, and the Kammermusiksaal at the Berliner Philharmonie.

For two decades and counting, the Formosa Quartet has forged uncharted musical terrain in performances that go “beyond the beautiful and into the territory of unexpectedly thrilling… like shots of pure espresso” (MUSO Magazine). The founding members’ interest in championing Taiwanese music and Indigenous cultures has since expanded to include the exploration of the rich folk traditions and heritages found in America today. Whether in its uncompromisingly exploratory approach to the standard quartet literature; its socioculturally probing ; or its unique curated from its collection of folk, pop, jazz, and poetry arrangements, the Formosa Quartet is committed to an insatiable search for the fresh and new in string quartet expression.

The members of the Formosa Quartet – Jasmine Lin, David Bernat, Matthew Cohen, and Deborah Pae – have established themselves as leading solo, chamber, and orchestral musicians. With degrees from the Juilliard School, Curtis Institute of Music, New England Conservatory, Colburn Conservatory, and the Cleveland Institute of Music, they have performed in major venues throughout the United States, Asia, and Europe and have been top prizewinners in prestigious competitions such as the Paganini, Primrose, Fischoff, and Naumburg competitions. As chamber musicians, they have appeared regularly at the Marlboro, Kingston, Santa Fe, and Ravinia festivals, as well as at Lincoln Center, La Jolla Summerfest, Caramoor, and Chamber Music Northwest. The members of the Formosa Quartet currently serve on faculty at Eastern Michigan University, Roosevelt University, and Heifetz International Music Institute. They have previously taught at the Taos School of Music and the Juilliard School.

Formosa Quartet violinist David Bernat and cellist Deborah Pae will return to Marlboro in January with their colleagues, violist Matthew Cohen and violinist Jasmine Lin, for a residency centered around the development of the quartet's latest program. They will share the results of their work with our local community in a performance on Wednesday, January 21.

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