The Miró Quartet is an internationally performing professional classical

string quartet The term string quartet refers to either a type of musical composition or a group of four people who play them. Many composers from the mid-18th century onwards wrote string quartets. The associated musical ensemble consists of two Violin, violini ...

based in

Austin, Texas Austin ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Texas. It is the county seat and most populous city of Travis County, Texas, Travis County, with portions extending into Hays County, Texas, Hays and W ...

. The group is the Quartet-in-Residence at the

University of Texas The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas, United States. Founded in 1883, it is the flagship institution of the University of Texas System. With 53,082 students as of fall 2 ...

and its members are on the faculty of the Butler School of Music. Its members are Daniel Ching,

violin The violin, sometimes referred to as a fiddle, is a wooden chordophone, and is the smallest, and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in regular use in the violin family. Smaller violin-type instruments exist, including the violino picc ...

; William Fedkenheuer (formerly of the Borromeo String Quartet and Fry Street Quartet), second violin (replacing Sandy Yamamoto); John Largess,

viola The viola ( , () ) is a string instrument of the violin family, and is usually bowed when played. Violas are slightly larger than violins, and have a lower and deeper sound. Since the 18th century, it has been the middle or alto voice of the ...

; and Joshua Gindele,

cello The violoncello ( , ), commonly abbreviated as cello ( ), is a middle pitched bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), tuned i ...

. The Quartet was founded in 1995 by four students at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. In 1997, two members left the group and were replaced by two new members who have remained in the group until this day. Within the first five years of its founding, it had won first prizes in all the competitions it entered, including the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition (1996), the 6th Banff International String Quartet Competition (1998) and the Naumburg Chamber Music Award (2000). It was awarded Chamber Music America's prestigious Cleveland Quartet Award in 2005 and was also the first ensemble to receive the

Avery Fisher Career Grant The Avery Fisher Career Grant, established by Avery Fisher, is an award given to up to five outstanding instrumentalists each year (since 2004, chamber music groups are also eligible). The Career Grants are a part of the Avery Fisher Artist Program ...

in that same year. The Miró Quartet regularly tours throughout

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

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, and

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. It is a frequent performer in major American festivals such as the

Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival The Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival is a six-week-long summer Festival of chamber music held annually in July and August and located in Santa Fe, New Mexico. It was founded in 1972 and presented its first series of concerts in 1973. Well-known mu ...

Chamber Music Northwest Chamber Music Northwest (CMNW) is an American non-profit organization in Portland, Oregon, dedicated to the performance and promotion of chamber music. In addition to its annual Summer Festival, the organization also presents individual chamber ...

, La Jolla Summerfest and Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival. It has collaborated with

Pinchas Zukerman Pinchas Zukerman (; born 16 July 1948) is an Israeli-American violinist, violist and conductor. Life and career Zukerman was born in Tel Aviv, to Jewish parents and Holocaust survivors Yehuda and Miriam Lieberman Zukerman. He began his musica ...

Joshua Bell Joshua David Bell (born December 9, 1967) is an American violinist and conductor. He is currently music director of the Academy of St Martin in the Fields. Early life and education Bell was born in Bloomington, Indiana, one of four children of ...

, Midori,

Leif Ove Andsnes Leif Ove Andsnes (; born 7 April 1970) is a Norwegian pianist and chamber musician. Andsnes has made several recordings for Virgin and EMI. In 2012, he signed with Sony Classical, and recorded for the label the "Beethoven Journey" project, whi ...

, Jon Kimura Parker, Eliot Fisk, and other noted musicians. Its discography includes a recording of George Crumb's Black Angels which was awarded a

Diapason d'Or The Diapason d'Or (French for "Golden Tuning Fork") is a recommendation of outstanding (mostly) classical music recordings given by reviewers of '' Diapason'' magazine in France, broadly equivalent to "Editor's Choice", "Disc of the Month" in the ...

award in 2004. The Quartet also recorded music of

Felix Mendelssohn Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (3 February 18094 November 1847), widely known as Felix Mendelssohn, was a German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of the early Romantic music, Romantic period. Mendelssohn's compositions inc ...

and

Franz Schubert Franz Peter Schubert (; ; 31 January 179719 November 1828) was an Austrian composer of the late Classical period (music), Classical and early Romantic music, Romantic eras. Despite his short life, Schubert left behind a List of compositions ...

with cellist Matt Haimovitz in 2003, which was mentioned six years later in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

''. In 2005, they released a recording of all six Opus 18 quartets of

Beethoven Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. He is one of the most revered figures in the history of Western music; his works rank among the most performed of the classical music repertoire ...

Selected Recordings

* ''PENTATONE OXINGALE SERIES Schubert'' - Arpeggione Sonata and String Quintet. Matt Haimovitz, Itamar Golan, Miró Quartet. PENTATONE PTC 5186549 (2016).

References

External links

www.miroquartet.com

Nowhere Bound
" 2009 performance review by the ''

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'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Miro Quartet American string quartets Musical groups established in 1995 Texas classical music