Lírios Quartet
Formed in 2022 at the University of Colorado Boulder, the Lírios Quartet comprises four emerging artists who have come together under the mentorship of the Takács Quartet. As the current Graduate String Quartet-in-Residence, they are engaged with developments in new music, taking part in the Pendulum New Music concert series with two premieres in the 2022-2023 season. Additionally, they collaborated with Sohap Ensemble and Art Song Colorado in the commissioning of Colorado Sky, a new children’s chamber opera involving the reintroduction of gray wolves into the state of Colorado.
Dedicated educators and community outreach advocates, the Lírios Quartet often work with schools in the Boulder/Denver area with the goal of introducing chamber music to the younger generation. They recently took part in the Aspen Music Festival and School Musical Connections residency in Colorado’s Roaring Fork Valley, where the quartet visited local elementary and middle schools, reaching more than 675 students, and also presented a recital at the Basalt Regional Library.
Complementing their studies at CU-Boulder with the Takács, Lírios Quartet have attended the Robert Mann String Quartet Institute and Juilliard String Quartet Seminar, where they were coached by members of the American, Brentano, Emerson, and Juilliard Quartets. In the summer of 2023, they served as the Emerging Artists Quartet-in-Residence at Madeline Island Chamber Music and the String Quartet Fellowship at Music in the Vineyards. The Lírios Quartet are recipients of the Dorothy Richard Starling Foundation Scholarship, the Takács Society String Scholarship, and the Margaret Steed Memorial Fund.
Benjamin Goldstein is a native New Yorker, a recent Bachelor of Music graduate of Indiana University Jacobs School of Music where he studied violin performance under Alexander Kerr. He has attended various summer festivals including Bowdoin International Music Festival, the Innsbrook Festival, Sarasota Music Festival, and the Music Academy of the West, where he participated in the String Quartet Seminar with the Takács Quartet, and worked with prominent conductors such as Larry Rachleff, Michael Tilson Thomas, and Marin Alsop. A past member of Face the Music at the Kaufman Music Center, Ben worked under the guidance of the Kronos Quartet and was dedicated to studying and performing works by living composers. In his free time, Ben produces and composes electronic music.
Born in Boulder Colorado, Maggie Brady began taking violin lessons at three years old and from a very young age, she developed a strong passion for chamber music. Maggie earned her Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Colorado Boulder, where she studied with Harumi Rhodes. She is an active member at the Icicle Creek Chamber Music Institute, closely collaborating with renowned faculty artists on various chamber music works. Besides the violin, Maggie loves puzzles, crocheting, and spending time with her beautiful dog Misty.
A native of Brazil, violist and violinist Yuri Santos began his musical studies at the age of eight under the tutelage of his father, Ênio Antunes. An avid chamber musician, Yuri is a former member of the Dior Quartet during their 2019-2020 Kuttner Student String Quartet Residency at Indiana University, mentored by the Pacifica Quartet. He has been invited to serve a week-long residency in Beethoven-Haus Bonn as the winner of the 2019 Bonn Quartet Competition and to attend the Britten-Pears Chamber Music Lab in Snape Maltings, U.K., in 2020. Most recently, he was awarded 1st prize at Macauley Chamber Music Competition and attended the Music Academy as a fellow, taking part in the String Quartet Seminar led by the Takács Quartet. Yuri has acquired a Bachelor of Music degree and a Performer Diploma from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, studying under Mark Holloway, Kevork Mardirossian, and Mauricio Fuks.
Cellist Chas Barnard is an active performer, music educator, and arts administrator based in Boulder, Colorado. Before joining the Lírios Quartet, he was a three-year Teaching Assistant and Lecturer at the University of Colorado Boulder. In the summers of 2019-2021, Chas was a fellow at the Music Academy of the West where he won the London Symphony - Keston Max Audition, performing in concerts with the London Symphony Orchestra under Simon Rattle and Gianandrea Noseda. He returned to Music Academy in 2022 as Chamber Music Specialist, overseeing the festival’s chamber music program. Chas is the co-founder of the Sohap Ensemble, a soprano-cello duet with his wife, soprano Sabina Balsamo, which collaborates with artists and composers on commissions, recordings, and intimate, out-of-the-box musical experiences. In 2022, Sohap commissioned and premiered a new children’s chamber opera called Colorado Sky by Ben Morris and Laura Fuentes about the reintroduction of gray wolves into the state. In addition to playing in the Lírios Quartet, Chas is a member of the Boulder Philharmonic and enjoys spending time with his wife Sabina, and his dog Jimmy, watching The Metropolitan Opera on-demand, and taking in the natural beauty of Colorado.