{"id":22765,"date":"2025-04-10T16:45:28","date_gmt":"2025-04-10T16:45:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/orchid-quartet-brings-pop-and-movie-magic-to-cortez\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T04:16:23","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:16:23","slug":"orchid-quartet-brings-pop-and-movie-magic-to-cortez","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/orchid-quartet-brings-pop-and-movie-magic-to-cortez\/","title":{"rendered":"Orchid Quartet brings pop and movie magic to Cortez"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The
The Los Angeles-based Orchid Quartet stopped by the Montezuma-Cortez High School auditorium Tuesday, April 8, to close out the Southwest Colorado Concert Series' 70th season. They are Michelle Shin and Aiko Richter on violin, Leah Metzler on cello and Kiara Ana Perico on viola. (Erika Alvero\/Special to The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

The 70th season of the Southwest Colorado Concert Series closed with a bang \u2013 or perhaps with a flurry of bows and strings.<\/p>\n

The Orchid Quartet, an all-female strings group based in Los Angeles, dropped by the Montezuma-Cortez High School auditorium Tuesday night to cap off their own tour of the Midwest and Colorado. Although strings might have a reputation for being a demure crowd, this group was anything but that.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho\u2019s ready to party with a string quartet!\u201d violist Kiara Ana Perico shouted to the 200-plus cheering audience members in the auditorium.<\/p>\n

The performance is part of the Southwest Colorado Concert series, which features at least four concerts every year.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur mission is to bring world-class, live musical performances to our hometown stage, at a reasonable cost,\u201d said Karen Harbaugh, a board member for Southwest Colorado Concerts. \u201cAnd that is pretty much what we stay true to. We do try to mix up the genres to give something for everybody. But these really are performances that normally you would only get to see in a big city.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Michelle
Michelle Shin and Aiko Richter play violin for the all-female Orchid Quartet Tuesday, April 8, at Montezuma-Cortez High School Auditorium. (Erika Alvero\/Special to The Journal).<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The concert series also especially emphasizes student engagement, Harbaugh said. This season, a grant from the LOR Foundation supported this effort by paying for student enrichment sessions, covering student ticket costs for evening concerts, and paying for student technicians to work the concerts.<\/p>\n

The performers who make this circuit really \u201chave to have a heart for travel,\u201d Harbaugh said. \u201cBut it is an absolutely amazing experience to be able to hear this level of music right here in our home.\u201d This season also featured Motown, a brass band, country \u201cwith a Cajun twist,\u201d and the local Four Corners Community Band.<\/p>\n

The Orchid Quartet was selected for the final show because the concert series hadn\u2019t yet featured an all-strings group, and because of the energy of the performance. \u201cThey looked, just like they are showing themselves on stage tonight, very engaging,\u201d Harbaugh said.<\/p>\n

The Tuesday night concert meandered through different genres the quartet plays, from classical to oldies to pop to movie music. Throughout the concert, the orchid-clad string players kept up a steady stream of conversation, recounting the inspiration behind their various selections and the group\u2019s origin story.<\/p>\n

\"Leah
Leah Metzler plays cello and Kiara Ana Perico plays viola for the all-female Orchid Quartet Tuesday, April 8, at Montezuma-Cortez High School Auditorium. (Erika Alvero\/Special to The Journal).<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The musicians met while on a world tour with the Japanese rock star Yoshiki, and the musical connection was immediate. Since they met, the women have performed or recorded for numerous major musical names, including Ariana Grande, Panic! at the Disco, Eminem, and Olivia Rodrigo, among many others. They have also recorded for soundtracks to major movies like The Jungle Book, The Lion King,<\/em> and X-Men: Dark Phoenix.<\/em><\/p>\n

Traces of their Los Angeles hometown were woven throughout, from John Williams movie soundtracks to the show\u2019s classical opening of Vivaldi\u2019s Summer, <\/em>which Perico described as \u201cfiery, summery, and thunderstormy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe we brought some summer to Cortez,\u201d she added, noting the week\u2019s beautiful weather.<\/p>\n

The songs also reflected their own experiences and even age. \u201cWe are millennials, so we had to throw in some Britney Spears,\u201d violinist Michelle Shin told the audience after the quartet\u2019s rendition of Toxic.<\/em> They closed with Bohemian Rhapsody and Adele\u2019s Skyfall<\/em> from the 2012 James Bond movie.<\/p>\n

Next season\u2019s lineup is already set and can be found on the Southwest Colorado Concerts website.<\/a> Harbaugh invited all business owners or musical aficionados to get involved with the group. \u201cWe\u2019re always looking for board members and for people to get behind it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\n

2025-2026 Southwest Colorado Concerts<\/h4>\n

M5 \u2013 The Mexican Brass:<\/strong> Brass quintet from Mexico\u200b, Tuesday, Sept. 23.<\/p>\n

Jaca:<\/strong> Clarinet and guitar duo, Friday, Oct. 31.<\/p>\n

The French Family Band<\/strong>: Influenced by country and western swing, Wednesday, March 25, 2026.<\/p>\n

CeCe Teneal\u2019s Divas of Soul: <\/strong>CeCe Teneal and two other vocalists, piano and track, Thursday, April 23, 2026. For all shows, doors open at 6 p.m., and concerts start at 7 p.m., 418 S. Sligo St. Tickets will be available soon. Visit www.swcoloradoconcerts.org<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LA-based strings group performs at M-CHS for Southwest Colorado Concert Series<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22766,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[363,902,28,36,559,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-22765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-arts","tag-entertainment-general","tag-headlines","tag-montezuma-cortez-high-school","tag-music","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22765"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22765\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77843,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22765\/revisions\/77843"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22765"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=22765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}