Skyline has a special way of turning the arts into community—bringing people together through shared moments of creativity and connection. We’re proud to celebrate how residents continue to learn, participate, and thrive in a place that welcomes curiosity. This season, Skyline brought that spirit to life through music by welcoming the Balourdet Quartet as the Seattle Chamber Music Society’s (SCMS) first-ever string quartet in residence, with Skyline as their home base.
From September 2025 through May 2026, violinists Angela Bae and Justin DeFilippis, violist Benjamin Zannoni, and cellist Russell Houston lived on-site through housing Skyline provided—what began as a practical solution quickly became something much more meaningful. As the quartet shared, “the opportunity at Skyline began as a housing solution, but it quickly became more than that.” Their presence transformed a conventional residency into truly living “in residence,” and we’re thrilled that SCMS has already announced the Balourdets will return for a second season.
Because the musicians were part of daily life at Skyline, residents didn’t just attend concerts—they witnessed the work, the discipline, and the joy behind the music. They sat in on rehearsals, observed master classes, and connected with the quartet over meals and informal gatherings. The quartet described it beautifully: “Here, we live in the same building as the people who come to our performances. It’s kind of like living with your audience.” That kind of proximity created a shared rhythm—residents experienced the creative process up close, and the musicians gained an ongoing circle of listeners who welcomed them as neighbors.
One of the most meaningful dimensions of this residency has been a pilot collaboration with the University of Washington’s Memory Hub, a dementia-focused community center run by UW’s Memory and Brain Wellness Center. This renowned Center is one block from the Skyline campus and has been a partner in sharing brain and memory research and supporting the memory care program at Skyline. Guided by researchers, caregivers, and participants, the Balourdet Quartet brought live chamber music into 17 Memory Hub programs for people living with memory loss—an inspiring example of how the arts can support well-being and belonging. The musicians told us what stands out most is “the difference between recorded music and live music.” When they’re physically in the room, they’ve seen “everyone…become focused on the activity at hand…as though nothing else matters except the present moment.” They also completed workshops on how to create a comfortable environment, noting that “taking time to talk with each person beforehand changes everything.”
On SCMS’s Signature Series, the Balourdets brought the same clarity and freshness Skyline residents saw in rehearsal to the concert hall—performing Brahms’ and Bartók’s third quartets, and later joining Seattle Symphony concertmaster Noah Geller and principal cellist Efe Baltacıgil for Brahms’ String Sextet No. 1. They also offered a free community preview that welcomed listeners into the ideas behind the program—an approach that mirrors what unfolded in Skyline’s own hallways and gathering spaces throughout the season.
What made this season so special at Skyline was the simple power of proximity. Open rehearsals—sometimes informal, sometimes structured—invited residents into the quartet’s working life. The musicians admitted, “Practicing in front of people can feel uncomfortable at first,” because rehearsal is normally private and unfinished. Yet over time, that openness became a defining feature of the residency. Residents might sit quietly as the quartet worked, or gather close as the musicians slowed down a passage and explained what they were listening for. Many Skyline residents sing in choirs or play in ensembles themselves, so as the quartet noticed, they “are not passive listeners. They engage, they ask, they respond.” The result felt less like performance delivered to an audience and more like music-making shared with neighbors.
This residency showed what can happen when artists are welcomed not only as performers, but as part of community life. By living and making music at Skyline—and extending that care into spaces like the Memory Hub—the Balourdet Quartet helped create moments of connection, curiosity, and presence for residents and neighbors alike. We’re grateful to celebrate Skyline’s role in making that possible, and we look forward to the quartet’s return next season.
