Telegraph Quartet featuring Abigail Fischer
Biographie Telegraph Quartet featuring Abigail Fischer
The Telegraph Quartet
has performed in concert halls, music festivals, and academic institutions across the United States and abroad, including New York City’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, San Francisco’s Herbst Theatre, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music’s Chamber Masters Series, and at festivals including the Chautauqua Institute, Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival, and the Emilia Romagna Festival. The Quartet is currently the Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Michigan.
Notable collaborations include projects with pianists Leon Fleisher and Simone Dinnerstein; cellists Norman Fischer and Bonnie Hampton; violinist Ian Swensen; and the St. Lawrence Quartet and Henschel Quartett. A fervent champion of 20th- and 21st-century repertoire, the Telegraph Quartet has premiered works by Osvaldo Golijov, John Harbison, Robert Sirota, and Richard Festinger.
The Telegraph Quartet released its celebrated debut album Into The Light in 2018 and is currently recording an extensive three-album series titled 20th Century Vantage Points for Azica Records, exploring string quartets of the 20th century. The first volume, Divergent Paths (2022), features two works that (to the best of the Quartet’s knowledge) have never been recorded on the same album before: Maurice Ravel’s String Quartet in F Major and Arnold Schoenberg’s String Quartet No. 1 in D minor, Op. 7. In August 2025, the Telegraph released the second volume, Edge of the Storm, which examines the turbulent years of war and its aftermath from 1941-1951 through string quartets by Grażyna Bacewicz, Benjamin Britten, and Mieczysław Weinberg. Volume three will be released in fall 2027. In addition, the Telegraph releases recordings of the string quartets of Robert Sirota in summer 2026 (Azica Records) and of Kenji Bunch in spring 2027 (Phenotypic Records).
Beyond the concert stage, the Telegraph Quartet is deeply committed to education, mentorship, and meaningful audience engagement. The ensemble has presented masterclasses globally, including for the Collegiate and Pre-College Divisions of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, through the Morrison Artist Series at San Francisco State University, and internationally at Taipei National University of the Arts, National Taiwan Normal University, and in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.
As Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Michigan, Telegraph has also launched an initiative designed to help emerging musicians bridge the gap between academic study and professional life. Through this program, selected chamber music students join the Quartet on tour, gaining professional experience by rehearsing, traveling, and performing alongside the ensemble.
The Quartet has also served as artists-in-residence at Gretna Music, the Interlochen Adult Chamber Music Camp, SoCal Chamber Music Workshop, and Crowden Music Center Chamber Music Workshop. In November 2020, Telegraph launched ChamberFEAST!, a chamber music workshop in Taiwan. That same year, the ensemble created TeleLab, an online video series in which the musicians collectively explore and break down the individual components of selected string-quartet movements. TeleLab has since expanded into an in-person lecture-demonstration and performance program.
In the summers of 2022 and 2024, the Telegraph Quartet traveled to Vienna to work with Schoenberg specialist Henk Guittart in collaboration with the Arnold Schönberg Center, undertaking an in-depth study of Schoenberg’s complete string quartets.
Abigail Fischer
is an internationally acclaimed American soprano celebrated for performances of exceptional emotional depth, dramatic honesty, and vocal artistry. The New York Times praised her “disarming intimacy,” and chief classical music critic Zachary Woolfe wrote, “Ms. Fischer sings with a passionate restraint that has no equal in her generation. You didn’t want her to stop.”
Known for her versatility across opera, concert repertoire, and contemporary music, Fischer has been featured at Los Angeles Opera, Cincinnati Opera, Chautauqua Opera, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Boston Baroque, American Bach Soloists, Ars Lyrica Houston, Da Camera of Houston, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, the Beijing Music Festival, Teatro Comunale di Bolzano, and the Hong Kong New Vision Arts Festival. Her performances have taken her to Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Merkin Hall, and major festivals throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia.
As a defining interpreter of contemporary opera, Fischer created the leading role in Missy Mazzoli and Royce Vavrek’s Song from the Uproar, and Du Yun and Royce Vavrek’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Angel’s Bone. She has premiered works by Nico Muhly, Elliott Carter, John Zorn, Bernard Rands, David Lang, Harold Meltzer, Robert Sirota, and performed Toshio Hosokawa’s Hanjo and The Raven in Trento, Italy.
Fischer has enjoyed a vibrant concert career spanning Bach, Handel, Mozart, Purcell, Mahler, Berg and George Benjamin. Highlights include Handel’s Messiah, Bach’s Mass in B Minor and Magnificat, Mahler’s Symphony No. 3, Lieberson’s Neruda Songs, Berg’s Sieben Frühe Lieder, and Wagner’s Wesendonck Lieder. Before transitioning to soprano, Fischer spent fifteen years performing professionally as a mezzo soprano, singing repertoire from Dido and Aeneas, Cenerentola and Carmen, while also working as a professional choral singer and cellist in New York.
A graduate of Vassar College and the Eastman School of Music, Fischer also trained at the Marlboro Music Festival, Aspen Music Festival, and Tanglewood Music Center.
Fischer’s work has expanded from interpreting the music of others to creating original musical experiences of her own. Today, through her Earthshine project, Fischer composes, performs, and facilitates immersive musical experiences integrating conscious breathwork, sound meditation, vocal improvisation, nervous system awareness, intuitive development, emotional energy release, shamanic journeying, inner child healing, shadow work, and voice activation. She has guided hundreds of individuals and groups through retreats, ceremonial concerts, and transformational experiences, continuing to explore music’s extraordinary capacity to awaken beauty, authenticity, healing, and wonder.
