The Poiesis Quartet makes its Vancouver debut at the Kay Meek Arts Centre, October 25
Award-winning young string players champion their queer identities, performing both new commissions and canonical works
Poiesis Quartet. Photo by Eden Davis
The Kay Meek Arts Centre hosts the Poiesis Quartet, one of the most distinctive young string quartets of its generation, on October 25 at 3 pm.
Formed at Oberlin Conservatory in 2022 and currently the quartet-in-residence at Curtis Institute of Music, Poiesis is the recipient of the 2026 Cleveland Quartet Award and the Grand Prize and Canadian Commission Prize at the 2025 Banff International String Quartet Competition. Expanding their repertoire with vibrant new works by emerging composers, and unreservedly championing their own LGBTQ+ identities, the four musicians infuse each performance with synchronicity, verve, and passionate expression.
On the program for the quartet’s Vancouver debut is Canadian composer Kevin Lau’s String Quartet No. 7, “Surfacing”, a Poiesis commission which premiered at New York’s Chautauqua Institution in 2025. The audience can also expect to hear Baltimore-based composer and installation artist Sky Macklay’s Many Many Cadences, as well as Prokofiev’s String Quartet No. 1 in B minor, Op. 50 and Beethoven’s Quartet in F major, Op. 135.
Tickets and more details are available through the Kay Meek Arts Centre.
Post sponsored by Kay Meek Arts Centre.
Related Articles
Tony Award–winning actor shares deeply personal, politically urgent, and darkly funny performance and conversation
Showcase of sci-fi and experimental theatre features performances by Jarin Schexnider, Plastik Theatriks, and more
At The Cultch, strong acting and a sharp script that’s packed with memorable lines give life to a play that’s hit an intergenerational nerve
Winner of the 2023 Pulitzer Prize, this quietly powerful play explores cultural displacement with warmth, humour, and piercing insight
Coproduction by Comédie-Française (Paris) and Les songes turbulents (Montréal) explores the passage of time in post-Victorian England
Director Mayumi Yoshida takes on challenges of translation in Hideki Noda’s darkly comedic play about people struggling with mistrust as they try to understand one another across linguistic gulfs
B.C. contenders for Canada’s largest theatre prize join finalists from Montreal and Calgary
Audience “assistance” ensures the mystery story’s plot twists always verge on the absurd, right up to the riotous final scene
New blend of horror, dark comedy, and queer romance emerges from Touchstone Theatre development program and Glitch Theatre’s disability-led approach
With live visual tricks and countless technical cues, the tale of high-tech burglary builds the momentum needed to pull off Arun Lakra’s time-jumping storyline
Sequel to the beloved musical comedy Nunsense sets the sisters in a school basement recording a cable-access Christmas special
In the SNAFU Society of Unexpected Spectacles production, Fraggle Rock puppeteer Ingrid Hansen brings a little stinker named Baby Tyler to adorably sassy life
Playwright Max Wolf Friedlich’s award-winning drama is a tense intergenerational showdown between a millennial content moderator and her baby boomer therapist
Offerings in store range from compelling plays care of the Arts Club On Tour to a relaxing matinee Coffee Concert Series
With hummable songs and intricate choreography, Metro Theatre opens its season with a Sesame Street parody that delights in poking fun at the absurdity of it all
Juliet: A Revenge Comedy, Eddie and Will, and Shakespeare’s Will to alternate on the Douglas Campbell Theatre stage
U.K.–based Out of the Forest Theatre’s production fuses gallows humour and vaudevillian horror
Offerings range from Indigenous drum and dance performances to videos that spotlight the Overdose Prevention Society
Two unique solo shows—one set in the underworld, the other in the dressing room—deliver witty takes on contemporary anxieties
Queer zombie love story explores mental illness, trauma, and choosing life in turbulent times
