Music at Mechanics': Beo String Quartet with Guest Artist Michel Taddei

Music at Mechanics', in partnership with Music at Kohl Mansion, welcomes you for a classical and contemporary musical evening.

Music at Mechanics’, in partnership with Music at Kohl Mansion, welcomes the Beo String Quartet for an evening of classical and contemporary compositions, sponsored by Sandy and Dick Drew, MI trustees.

Featuring Jason Neukom & Andrew “Gio” Giordano, violins, Sean Neukom, viola, Ryan Ash, cello, and guest artist Michel Taddei, double bass.

Joining the Beo Quartet for this concert as a guest artist is double bassist Michel Taddei who is a founding member of the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, and is Principal Bass of the Mendocino Music Festival, Berkeley Symphony, Bay Philharmonic, and San Francisco and Pacific Chamber Orchestras. He has performed with the San Francisco Symphony and New Century Chamber Orchestras. Additional credits include performances with Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble in the U.S. and Central Asia.

Attendees will have the chance to meet the musicians after the program.

Featuring selections from:

J.S. Bach
Selections from The Art of Fugue, BWV 1080

Philip Glass
String Quartet No. 3, Mishima

Sean Neukom
El Balcón

Gabriela Ortiz
Mictlán (Place of the Dead), from Altar de Muertos

Antonín Dvořák
Double Bass Quintet in G Major, Op. 77

About the Beo String Quartet

“This is an ensemble whose music making speaks to the heart as well as the mind.” (Grammy-winning composer Richard Danielpour, Curtis Institute of Music)

With 65 world premieres to its credit and 150 concert works played throughout the United States, South America, and Europe, the iconoclastic Beo String Quartet does what it loves best: playing classical repertoire, contemporary, rock, and experimental music. From the Latin “to make happy,” Beo started out as a lark. Two Mexican-American brothers, Jason Neukom and Sean Neukom, decided to record a song entitled “Happy, Happy,” composed by Sean, but for that they would need two more players. And so, in 2015 the Beo String Quartet was formed. The eclectic and highly polished Beo String Quartet has created a niche for itself as a daring, genre-defying ensemble. Rigorously trained in the classical tradition, the musicians also know their way around contemporary expression, including the use of electronics, live sound processing, and spatial audio manipulation. In 2023, the Beo Quartet made an auspicious New York debut at the famed J.P. Morgan Library in a concert that was hailed as “outstanding” by the New York Classical Review. Undaunted by artistic or logistical challenges, the Beo play the masters in a variety of settings, collaborate with living composers, and explore technology’s capacity to the fullest.

The Beo String Quartet concert is a part of Music at Mechanics', a live music series in Mechanics' Institute's historic downtown spaces.

Photos and/or video may be taken at the event.