Quartet Novalis – Winners of the Arizona Early Music Emerging Ensemble Residency2026 Competition

We are thrilled to announce that the Benderly-Kendall Opera House has again been selected as one of the concert venues for the winners of the Arizona Early Music Emerging Ensemble Residency Program – Quartet Novalis from New York City. This prestigious EER program aims to support and showcase emerging talent in early music, and we are honored to host these musicians at our exquisite venue in Patagonia. We hope you won’t miss the opportunity to be a part of this exciting musical event!

Join us on Monday July 20 at 5 pm in congratulating the winners and celebrating their dedication to enriching the world of early music! Admission is free but donations are gratefully accepted.

Quartet Novalis is a period-instrument string quartet based in New York City. The quartet—Eliana Estrada,Ela Kodžas, Annemarie Schubert, and Luka Stefanović—seeks to bring a fresh perspective to the string quartet repertoire by uncovering 18th- and 19th-century concepts of sound, rhetoric, and musical understanding.

Quartet Novalis was in residence as the Academy Quartet at the Carmel Bach Festival in the summer of 2024.Since then, they have performed in the fringe concert series at both the Boston Early Music Festival and the Festival Oude Muziek in Utrecht. The name Novalis is an homage to 18th-century German polymath and philosopher, Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg, whose beliefs centered around dissolving the barriers between language and the surrounding world.

Now in its 43rd season, Arizona Early Music (AEM) was founded in 1982 by University of Arizona faculty and Tucsonan early music lovers with the mission of enriching contemporary life with music of the past. AEM’s concerts feature musicians from around the globe who perform on period instruments and whose artistry is guided by a fluency in historical musical styles.