For cellist Camden Shaw, performing in Ashland is layered with meaning. His father, Martin Shaw, led the Rogue Valley Symphony for nearly three decades, and his mother was a violinist and educator.
“I was born in Ashland,” Shaw said. “My parents literally walked down to the hospital when my mom was going to give birth. I lived there until I was 11, and now my parents live there again."
He said performing here feels deeply personal. "I can’t believe I get to perform in a place like Ashland and share my family and friends with my work colleagues. It’s very, very special for me.”
Music was ever-present in Shaw’s childhood, but his parents, knowing the challenges of the profession, never pushed him toward a career in music. “They made it seem like a safe and meaningful place to be, but they also wanted me to think carefully about it.”
Building a life in music
That thoughtfulness carried into Shaw’s education and career. After moving to Seattle, he set his sights on the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia — the only school he applied to.
“Everyone in the Dover Quartet went to undergrad at Curtis," Shaw said. "It’s an incubator for inspired classical musicians — a great place to be a dreamer."
The quartet’s members deepened their collaboration at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music, one of the few schools offering a string quartet master’s program. “A quartet is often described as a four-way marriage,” Shaw said. “We had to decide whether we all wanted to move to a new city together — it suddenly went from dreamscape to reality..”
Encouragement from mentors helped them stay the course. “Those kind words carry you through the scary times,” Shaw reflected. “I try to remember now, as I teach, how valuable that encouragement can be.”
The harmony of a quartet
Today, Shaw’s bond with his fellow musicians remains both musical and personal.
“The two violinists are Joel Link and Bryan Lee. I’ve known them both since I was 16. They’re incredibly gifted, but more importantly, they’re honest communicators of emotion,” he said. “People think in a quartet you want to be identical to your neighbor, but it’s more about completing a picture together, like different spices in a dish.”
The Dover Quartet will also perform with violist Hezekiah Leung, a longtime collaborator. “He’s part of the Quartet family,” Shaw said. “He’s an amazing musician with so much energy and positivity, and he always finds the best craft beer in every town we visit.”
A program that travels through time
Each season, the Dover Quartet builds its repertoire democratically. “We start with each member submitting a ‘dream piece,’” Shaw said. “Then we think of it like a menu — what flavors do we need? What’s missing? Presenters then choose from that menu for their audiences. It’s a great way to create balance and variety.”
For their Ashland performance, the Dover Quartet will offer a program spanning many centuries and styles:
- Jessie Montgomery – Strum
- Karol Szymanowski – String Quartet No. 1 in C Major, Op. 37
- Josef Haydn – String Quartet in D Major, Op. 20 No. 4
- Felix Mendelssohn – Quartet No. 6 in F Minor, Op. 80
“Montgomery’s Strum explores bluegrass and Appalachian rhythms — it’s a really cool, virtuosic piece that’s so much fun to play," Shaw said. "The Szymanowski is one of the all-time most beautiful and beguiling quartets. It deserves to be heard much more often.”
From there, the quartet moves to Haydn’s bright and inventive early quartet, before closing with Mendelssohn’s emotionally charged Opus 80. “It’s one of the most powerful quartets in the repertoire,” said Shaw. “It’s fiery, virtuosic, and deeply emotional — it’s hard to even talk about it without getting emotional. It’s a very impactful way to end a concert.”
The Dover Quartet performs Saturday, October 12, at 3:00 p.m. in the Music Recital Hall at Southern Oregon University. More information is available at chambermusicconcerts.org.
