Antrim-based Silentwoods Collective will host Quartet Novalis on Friday, July 31, at 7:30 p.m. at Antrim Town Hall.
“This is our first time hosting a string quartet, and it’s Quartet Novalis’ first time performing with Silentwoods,” said Andrew Koutroubas, founder of the Silentwoods Collective. “It is different from what we’ve done before. We’ve never had a string quartet play, and it’s a more intimate performance; it’s going to be really special.”
Koutroubas, who founded Silentwoods Collective with friends from the Juilliard School in 2021, grew up in Wilton and attended Pine Hill and Wilton-Lyndeborough Cooperative High School. The Silentwoods Collective, which showcases baroque music performed on historic and antique instruments, brings free community concerts, as well as ticketed events and workshops, to the Monadnock region and Hillsborough County.
Doors for the Quartet Novalis show will open at 7 p.m. Admission is free, but registration is requested either online or at the door. Walk-ins are welcome. The concert will be one hour, with no intermission.
Novalis Quartet, a period-performance ensemble based in New York City, was founded in 2024 and consists of Eliana Estrada, Ela Kodžas, Annemarie Schubert and Luka Stefanović.
“Eliana, Ela and Annemarie were all classmates of mine at Juilliard, and they were all performing at the Carmel Bach Festival in Carmel, Calif., where they met Luka, and they all just decided, we need to keep going and perform together,” Koutroubas said. “They really bring a fresh perspective on 18th and 19th century string quartet repertoire.”
According to Koutroubas, Quartet Novalis will “breathe new life” into pieces by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and “other revolutionary composers who transformed the string quartet into one of history’s most intimate and expressive art forms.”
Currently, Novalis Quartet is in residency at Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music in Nelson.
“They will be coming straight from Apple Hill to play in Antrim,” Koutroubas said. “They have all played with Silentwoods before, except Luka; it’s his first time doing Silentwoods. These special performances offer audiences an opportunity to experience chamber music as it may have been heard more than two centuries ago, alive with spontaneity, intimacy, and extraordinary beauty.”
The name of the quartet is inspired by the philosopher Novalis, who “believed art could dissolve the barriers between people and the world around them.” The quartet plays on original historical instruments of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
“Quartet Novalis approaches music as a living language, one capable of stirring the imagination, transcending time, and inviting listeners into conversation with the past,” Koutroubas said.
Novalis Quartet was previously in residency as the Academy Quartet at the Carmel Bach Festival (2024); was a semifinalist in the International Van Wassenaer Competition (Netherlands, 2025); and has performed throughout New York City, at the Boston Early Music Fringe Festival (2025) and at the Utrecht Fringe Festival (Netherlands, 2025). This upcoming season, the ensemble has been selected as Pegasus Rising Artists and will perform for audiences throughout upstate New York.
For tickets and additional information, visit www.silentwoodscollective.org.