Program and Artist Biography

Praised by The New Yorker as “a fresh and vital young participant in what is a golden age of American string quartets,” the Daedalus Quartet has established itself as a leader among the new generation of string ensembles. In the 10 years of its existence, the Daedalus Quartet has received plaudits from critics and listeners alike for the security, technical finish, interpretive unity, and sheer gusto of its performances.

The New York Times has praised the Daedalus Quartet’s “insightful and vibrant” Haydn, the “impressive intensity” of its Beethoven, its “luminous” Berg, and the “riveting focus” of its Dutilleux. The Washington Post has acclaimed the quartet's performance of Mendelssohn for its “rockets of blistering virtuosity,” while the Houston Chronicle has described the “silvery beauty” of its Schubert and the “magic that hushed the audience” when it played Ravel. The Boston Globe praised the “finesse and fury” of its Shostakovich, the Toronto Globe and Mail the “thrilling revelation” of its Hindemith, and the Cincinnati Enquirer the “tremendous emotional power” of its Brahms.

Since its founding the Daedalus Quartet has performed in many of the world’s leading musical venues. In the United States, these include Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center (Great Performers series), the Library of Congress, the Corcoran Gallery, and Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. The quarter has also played in major series in Canada, including Montreal, Toronto, Calgary, Winnipeg, and Vancouver. Abroad, the ensemble has been heard in such famed locations as the Musikverein in Vienna, the Mozarteum in Salzburg, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Cité de la Musique in Paris, and leading venues in Japan.

The Daedalus Quartet has won plaudits for its adventurous exploration of contemporary music, most notably the compositions of Elliott Carter, George Perle, György Kurtág, and György Ligeti. Among the works the ensemble has premiered are David Horne’s Flight from the Labyrinth, commissioned for the quartet by the Caramoor Festival; Fred Lerdahl’s Third String Quartet, commissioned by Chamber Music America; and Lawrence Dillion’s String Quartet No. 4, commissioned by the Thomas S. Kenan Institute for the Arts. Daedalus will premiere a new quartet from Joan Tower, commissioned for it by Chamber Music Monterey Bay, in April 2012.

The quartet has also collaborated with some of the world’s finest instrumentalists, including pianists Simone Dinnerstein, Marc-André Hamelin, Benjamin Hochman, Awadagin Pratt, and Joyce Yang; clarinetists Alexander Fiterstein, Paquito D’Rivera, and David Shifrin; and violists Roger Tapping and Donald Weilerstein.

The quartet has forged associations with Carnegie Hall through its European Concert Hall Organization Rising Stars program, and Lincoln Center, which appointed the Daedalus Quartet as the Chamber Music Society Two quartet for 2005–7. The Daedalus Quartet has been quartet-in-residence at Columbia University’s since 2005 and at the University of Pennsylvania since 2006. In 2007 the quartet was awarded Lincoln Center’s Martin E. Segal Award. The quartet also won Chamber Music America’s Guarneri String Quartet Award, which funded a three-year residency in Suffolk County, Long Island, from 2007–10.