About the Elements Quartet

The Elements Quartet is dedicated to communicating the excitement of chamber music to contemporary audiences of all ages. Founded in the summer of 1999, the ensemble has already won acclaim for its passionate performances and dynamic programs. The quartet's repertoire ranges from popular masterpieces to neglected treasures, and from Baroque classics to newly commissioned works by today's most celebrated composers - an eclectic and expansive view of the quartet literature that is unified by the group's keen musicianship and its fresh insights into how chamber music can connect with today's listeners.

Called "an important new ensemble" by the composer David Del Tredici, the Elements Quartet is a partnership of highly skilled musicians. In contrast to some quartets, which form when their players are students, the four musicians of the Elements Quartet enjoyed successful individual careers in major international orchestras and distinguished chamber-music ensembles before their mutual love for the quartet sound brought them together. The Quartet carries forward a long chamber music tradition, having studied with members of the Cleveland, Tokyo, Juilliard, and Guarneri quartets.

The Elements Quartet selected its name for its evocative musical and metaphysical associations. The ancient Greeks saw Air, Earth, Water, and Fire as the elements that formed the natural world. Scientists of the 20th Century defined the cosmos with the Table of Elements. Today's researchers are exploring our elements in the Human Genome Project. In a string quartet, each member contributes a unique musical, human, and creative element that knits together to form a seamless whole. All of these definitions merge to form the artistic vision of the Elements Quartet. Like the word, Elements has a multiplicity of meanings and messages, yet always seeks to find the irreducible core-the basic material that is universal to us all.

Based in the New York metropolitan area, the Elements Quartet performed last summer to critical acclaim at important venues, including Rutgers SummerFest, Caramoor Festival, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival/Yale School of Music, and the Kent/Blossom Music Festival. The quartet received grants from the Arthur Judson Foundation and the National Orchestral Association for the commission of a new string quartet by noted New Jersey composer David Sampson. Last summer, it was the recipient of a major grant from the Koussevitzky Foundation to commission the first string quartet by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer David Del Tredici. The premiere of this important new work, titled "Wondrous the Merge," is planned for Spring 2002. Elements Quartet was honored last year by being awarded the Norfolk/Yale Debut Prize for outstanding new ensemble. In Fall 2000, the quartet was featured on MetroArts 13 in a PBS program from the Caramoor Festival with Peter Oundjian, Artistic Director of the Caramoor Festival.