Calder Quartet

The Calder Quartet performs a broad range of repertoire at an exceptional level, always striving to channel and fulfil the composer’s vision. Already the choice of many leading composers to perform their works, the group’s distinctive approach is exemplified by a musical curiosity brought to everything they perform.

Winners of the prestigious 2014 Avery Fisher Career Grant, they are widely known for the discovery, commissioning, recording and mentoring of some of today’s best emerging composers (over 25 commissioned works to date). The group continues to work and collaborate with artists across musical genres, spanning the ranges of the classical and contemporary music world, as well as rock and film/tv soundtracks, and in venues ranging from museums to Carnegie and the Hollywood Bowl.

Inspired by innovative American artist Alexander Calder, the Calder Quartet’s desire to bring immediacy and context to the works they perform creates an artfully crafted musical experience. Recent and upcoming highlights include Lincoln Center, Metropolitan Museum of Art, multiple performances at Wigmore Hall, Barbican, Salzburg Festival, Donaueschingen Festival, Frankfurt Alte Oper, Tonhalle Zurich, IRCAM Paris, Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie, Centro Nacional de Difusión Musical Madrid, a residency at the Perth International Arts Festival and returns to Los Angeles’ Disney Hall and the Ojai Music Festival on a program curated by Peter Sellars. Their long list of collaborators include the Cleveland Orchestra, LA Philharmonic, Thomas Adès, Peter Eötvös, Barbara Hannigan, Audrey Luna, Johannes Moser, Joshua Bell, Edgar Meyer and Danielle DeNiese.

The quartet has been featured in extremely popular TV shows such as the Late Show with David Letterman, the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, KCRW’s Morning Becomes Eclectic, the Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien, Late Night with Jimmy Kimmel, and the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson.

In 2011 the Calder Quartet launched a non-profit dedicated to furthering its efforts in commissioning, presenting, recording, and education, collaborating with the Getty Museum, Segerstrom Center for the Arts, and the Barbican Centre in London. The Calder Quartet formed at the University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music and continued studies at the Colburn Conservatory of Music with Ronald Leonard, and at the Juilliard School, receiving the Artist Diploma in Chamber Music Studies as the Juilliard Graduate Resident String Quartet. The quartet regularly conducts master classes and has taught at the Colburn School, the Juilliard School, Cleveland Institute of Music, University of Cincinnati College Conservatory and USC Thornton School of Music.

Photo: courtesy of Pentatone in Press Release