5 Minutes with the Balourdet Quartet

By Thomas May | From the May/June 2026 issue of Strings

Under the auspices of the Seattle Chamber Music Society (SCMS), the Balourdet Quartet—violinists Angela Bae and Justin DeFilippis, violist Benjamin Zannoni, and cellist Russell Houston—has spent the season living in housing provided by Skyline, a retirement community in downtown Seattle, as the organization’s first-ever string quartet in residence. Running from September 2025 through May 2026, the residency placed the quartet not simply onstage but inside the daily life of the community; the SCMS has since announced that the Balourdets will return for a second season. Winner of a 2024 Avery Fisher Career Grant and Chamber Music America’s Cleveland Quartet Award, the Balourdet Quartet tours widely and also serves as string quartet in residence with the Chamber Orchestra of the Triangle in North Carolina.

In Seattle, residents at Skyline attended rehearsals, observed master classes, and interacted with the musicians in informal settings over meals and social events. The quartet’s activities extended beyond the building as well. In partnership with the University of Washington’s Memory Hub—a dementia-focused community center operated by UW’s Memory and Brain Wellness Center—the musicians participated in a pilot collaboration bringing live chamber music into programs for people living with memory loss, working alongside researchers, caregivers, and participants.

The residency also brought the quartet into cultural spaces across the city. At a free event at the Seattle Art Museum—held in conjunction with the exhibition Farm to Table: Art, Food, and Identity in the Age of Impressionism—the Balourdet Quartet introduced the Debussy and Ravel quartets in vivid detail, with lively musical commentary, before performing the works in full alongside a new piece by composer Nicky Sohn. Audience members could move between the performance and the exhibition—an illuminating example of how the residency brought chamber music into conversation with other art forms.

The quartet’s work in Seattle additionally included appearances on SCMS’s Signature Series. On March 8, they performed the third quartets by Brahms and Bartók, before joining Seattle Symphony concertmaster Noah Geller and principal cellist Efe Baltacıgil for Brahms’ String Sextet No. 1—an engrossing program that showcased the ensemble’s blend of technical clarity and expressive freshness. Ahead of the concert, the Balourdets offered a free community preview exploring Brahms’ contrasting musical personalities through his final quartet and the first sextet.

During their Seattle residency, they explored what happens when a quartet stops simply visiting a city and instead becomes part of its musical life.

When the idea was first proposed that you would relocate to Seattle and live inside a retirement community for the season, what was your reaction?

We had already been thinking about what it would mean to build a community somewhere, rather than just fly in for concerts and leave. When Seattle Chamber Music Society began discussing the residency, one of the central ideas was that you can’t really call it a residency unless you’re actually in residence. That meant living in the city.

The opportunity at Skyline began as a housing solution, but it quickly became more than that. SCMS wanted the quartet to truly be in residence. Skyline was able to provide housing, and that opened the door to a deeper connection with the community. After touring, coming back meant seeing the same people again—neighbors who had attended rehearsals or heard us speak about programs. That continuity changed what it meant to come back “home” after time on the road.

What differentiates this residency from a more traditional quartet-in-residence model?

The level of embedding. Many residencies involve a short visit—concerts, maybe a class—and then you move on. Here, we live in the same building as the people who come to our performances. It’s kind of like living with your audience. They see the process, not just the finished product, and they’re often there when we’re still trying things out. That creates a different kind of connection. 

At the same time, we’ve maintained our touring schedule. So we leave, perform elsewhere, and then return. But returning now means coming back to a community that has been part of the work all along.

You’ve opened rehearsals to Skyline residents. What has that experience
been like?

Practicing in front of people can feel un-comfortable at first. Rehearsal is usually something we do privately, where we’re working things out. Letting residents walk in while we’re rehearsing—or inviting them into a more formal open rehearsal—required adjustment.

Sometimes they simply sit quietly while we rehearse in the hall. Other times we sit close together and go through something slowly—like a Bach chorale—and people ask questions whenever they want. We’ll stop and explain what we’re listening for or why we’re shaping something a certain way.

Over time, that openness has become one of the most meaningful aspects of the residency. Many Skyline residents sing in choirs or participate in ensembles. They are not passive listeners. They engage, they ask, they respond. It feels like a shared process rather than a closed door.

One of the most distinctive aspects of the residency is your partnership with the University of Washington’s Memory Hub. What have you learned from that collaboration?

One of the biggest things we’ve noticed is the difference between recorded music and live music. You can easily turn on a recording during an activity like a tai chi or art class, but when we’re physically there playing, you can feel everyone in the room become focused on the activity at hand—whether that’s music or the craft of the day—and it can feel as though nothing else matters except the present moment. 

Before participating, we completed workshops to learn how to speak with people living with memory loss and how to create a comfortable environment. We learned quickly that taking time to talk with each person beforehand changes everything. It makes the space feel safe, which affects how people respond.

We’ve tried different approaches. In one session, we included songs from participants’ home countries. The response to familiar music was immediate—you could see it. In another, we paired performance with watercolor painting and conversation.

Each session has been different, but what remains consistent is responsiveness. It’s a reminder that a concert doesn’t have to be two hours long or formally structured to be meaningful. Even a short session can change someone’s day.

Has this residency altered the way you rehearse or think about programming?

The experience has sharpened our focus on intention. We often talk about finding the “why” behind what we’re doing, but being in so many different kinds of settings makes that question unavoidable. Before an event—especially one that’s new—we ask: What is the purpose here? What are we trying to communicate in this specific space? We don’t want quartet playing to be just another item on a schedule.

That has influenced how we frame programs, how long they are, and how we speak about the music. When you’re in a small room, and you’ve spoken with the audience beforehand, you can’t hide behind abstraction. The communication has to be clear.

Beyond Skyline and the Memory Hub, the residency includes schools and other community partnerships. How do those experiences shape your sense of what a quartet can be?

They reinforce the importance of adapting to different settings. We’ve collaborated with students, performed in museum spaces, and taken part in programs designed for different community audiences. Each context requires us to think carefully about how we present the music.

It comes back to intention—understanding who is in the room and why we’re there. That awareness has carried over into our more traditional concert settings as well.

What do you hope this residency model might inspire—for yourselves and for the broader field?

A few years ago, we might have assumed that building our careers meant securing a university position. This experience has shown us that there are other ways to build a career as a quartet. SCMS was willing to try something different. Living in the community, rather than simply appearing for performances, has changed how we think about what a residency can be. We hope it encourages other organizations and quartets to try similar long-term models. If this shows that a quartet can become part of a city—not just pass through it—that feels important.