ENSEMBLE · STRING QUARTET
Verona Quartet
#1 Billboard Classical
SHATTER, an album evoking the breaking of the glass ceiling Cleveland Quartet
Award-winning ensemble Oberlin
Quartet-in-Residence ABOUT
The Verona Quartet is recognized as a premier ensemble of its generation, praised by The New York Times as an “outstanding ensemble… cohesive yet full of temperament.” Recipients of the 2020 Chamber Music America Cleveland Quartet Award and the Fischoff National Chamber Music Association’s 2025 Educator Award, the ensemble has earned a reputation for its “bold interpretive strength” (Calgary Herald) and “opulent sonority” (The Strad). The Quartet serves on the faculty of Oberlin College and Conservatory as Quartet-in-Residence and as Artistic Directors of the Lunenburg Academy of Music Performance. The ensemble’s rise to international prominence was fueled by a swift succession of top prize wins at Wigmore Hall, Melbourne, Osaka, M-Prize, and Fischoff International Chamber Music Competitions, as well as the 2015 Concert Artists Guild Competition.
A string quartet for the 21st century, the Verona Quartet pairs versatile programming with imaginative collaborations that bridge the time-honored canon and new, interdisciplinary works. Notable commissions and premieres include works by composers Christopher Theofanidis, Julia Adolphe, Texu Kim, and Sebastian Currier, as well as Michael Gilbertson’s Pulitzer Prize-nominated Quartet. The Quartet recently celebrated several world premieres, including a work for string quartet, yangqin (Chinese dulcimer), and dancer by Cheng Jin Koh, commissioned by The Smithsonian Institution in honor of the centennial of the Freer Gallery of Art. The 2025 season marks the launch of a new project with American tenor Ben Bliss, featuring the American Songbook alongside art song literature. Past ventures highlight the group's versatility, ranging from live-performance art installations with artist Ana Prvački to collaborations with the Grammy-winning folk trio I’m With Her.
The Quartet’s recording catalog reflects this same spirit of exploration. Their second album, SHATTER, debuted at #1 on the Billboard Traditional Classical Chart in 2023, showcasing works written for the ensemble by Julia Adolphe and Michael Gilbertson, alongside Reena Esmail’s Ragamala with Hindustani vocalist Saili Oak. This followed their debut album Diffusion, praised by BBC Music Magazine for its "radiant glow," and a 2023 release of György Ligeti’s complete string quartet cycle. In 2026, the quartet will release their fourth album featuring the string quartets of Felix Mendelssohn.
Read full biography
The Verona Quartet has appeared across four continents, captivating audiences at venues such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, Library of Congress, the Smithsonian Institution, Jordan Hall, and Wigmore Hall. They have performed at festivals including the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, La Jolla Summerfest, Chamber Music Northwest, and Bravo! Vail. In addition to its position at Oberlin, the Quartet is featured in annual residencies at the ENCORE Chamber Music Institute and North Carolina’s Chamber Orchestra of the Triangle.
In the 2025–26 season, the Verona Quartet maintains an active schedule with appearances at the Cleveland Chamber Music Society, Telluride Chamber Music, and Montreal’s Ladies Morning Music Club. The ensemble also returns to the Howland Chamber Music Circle and the University of Hartford, while making debuts with Newport Classical and the Spire Center. Collaborative highlights include tours with guitarist Lukasz Kuropaczewski, pianist Henry Kramer, and saxophonist Steven Banks, alongside a string octet program featuring the Borromeo String Quartet. In 2026, the Quartet returns to the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival to collaborate with clarinetist David Shifrin.
The Verona Quartet takes its name from the city of Verona, paying tribute to William Shakespeare and the belief that the spirit of storytelling transcends genre. The Verona Quartet are D’Addario Artists and The Violin Channel Artists.
PRESS & REVIEWS
What the critics say
“An outstanding ensemble…cohesive yet full of temperament.”
— The New York Times
“Rich carpet of tone…opulent sonority”
— The Strad
“impressive synergy between members and seamless transitions made for an atmospheric performance par excellence”
— South China Morning Post
“the Verona underlined the work's deep and songful wisdom in a profoundly centred interpretation”
— The Strad
VIDEOS
Videos
2026-27
Programs & Repertoire
Program One
Belonging
- Beethoven String Quartet No. 2 in G major, Op. 18, No. 2
- Gabriela Lena Frank Leyendas: An Andean Walkabout
- Intermission
- Dvořák String Quartet No. 14 in A-flat major, Op. 105
Home can be a place of origin, a cultural inheritance, or something discovered through memory and return. Beethoven wrote his Op. 18 No. 2 after leaving Bonn for Vienna, absorbing the traditions of Haydn and Mozart while beginning to establish a voice of his own. Gabriela Lena Frank explores her Peruvian heritage through the imagined Andean landscapes and traditions of Leyendas: An Andean Walkabout, and Dvořák’s final quartet, completed after his return to Bohemia from the United States, carries the warmth and renewed freedom of homecoming.
Program Two
String Quartet “Songbook”
- Barber String Quartet in B minor, Op. 11
- Stephen Hartke Night Songs for a Desert Flower
- Intermission
- George Walker Lyric for String Quartet
- Dvořák String Quartet No. 14 in A-flat major, Op. 105
Created in celebration of the 250th anniversary of the United States, String Quartet “Songbook” explores American musical identity through works that treat the string quartet as a singing voice. Barber’s only quartet, whose slow movement became the Adagio for Strings, stands alongside Stephen Hartke’s contemporary nocturne and George Walker’s luminous Lyric, with a strong Oberlin lineage running through the program. It closes with Dvořák’s final quartet, the last work he began during his years in the United States.
Program Three
Screenplay
- Korngold String Quartet No. 2 in E-flat major, Op. 26
- Philip Glass String Quartet No. 3 “Mishima”
- Intermission
- Beethoven String Quartet No. 14 in C-sharp minor, Op. 131
Hollywood stands among America’s most influential cultural exports, and this program traces the deep ties between film and the string quartet. Korngold, one of cinema’s most successful composers, brought Viennese Romanticism into the world of film, and his Second Quartet foreshadows the lush harmonic language that would define generations of soundtracks. Philip Glass’s Third Quartet serves as the complete score for Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, and the concert concludes with Beethoven’s monumental Op. 131, a work whose influence has extended far beyond music into literature, poetry, and film itself.
Program One
Quartettsatz
- Schubert String Quartet No. 12 in C minor, D. 703 “Quartettsatz”
- Philip Glass Quartet Satz
- Tchaikovsky String Quartet Movement in B-flat major
- Intermission
- Schubert String Quartet No. 15 in G major, D. 887
Marking the 200th anniversary of Schubert’s death, Quartettsatz pays homage to a composer whose imagination often outpaced completion. Alongside Schubert’s final and expansive G-major Quartet are three compelling single-movement works, each standing as a concentrated statement. Together, these fragments and monuments illuminate the expressive power of ideas left unfinished and those brought fully to fruition.
Program Two
“O Albion”
- Haydn String Quartet in G minor, Op. 74, No. 3 “The Rider”
- Thomas Adès Arcadiana, Op. 12
- Intermission
- Britten String Quartet No. 2 in C major, Op. 36
Albion, the ancient name for Great Britain, frames this tribute to music from the British Isles. Haydn composed his Op. 74 quartets for London audiences, where they were met with immediate success. Britten’s Second Quartet honors Henry Purcell through the Baroque form of the chaconne, reimagined with modern intensity. Thomas Adès’s Arcadiana, a delicately crafted first quartet, takes inspiration from Edward Elgar’s “Nimrod,” with its emotional core poignantly titled “O Albion.”
Program Three
Blueprint
- Beethoven String Quartet No. 10 in E-flat major, Op. 74
- Mendelssohn String Quartet No. 1 in E-flat major, Op. 12
- Intermission
- Shostakovich String Quartet No. 3 in F major, Op. 73
The influence of Beethoven looms large over the string quartet tradition. Mendelssohn’s First Quartet draws directly on Beethoven’s Op. 74 as a model for his own early exploration of the genre. Shostakovich, whose quartets were first performed by the Beethoven Quartet, would go on to make one of the most significant contributions to the medium since Beethoven himself. This program reveals lineage, inheritance, and reinvention across generations.
Program Four
Reading Between the Lines
- Jessie Montgomery Source Code
- Beethoven String Quartet No. 10 in E-flat major, Op. 74
- Intermission
- JacobTV The Body of Your Dreams (with tape)
- Shostakovich String Quartet No. 3 in F major, Op. 73
Music speaks, even when it has no words. A gesture can behave like a sentence, and a recurring motive can preserve a memory or disclose an identity. Montgomery’s Source Code absorbs the rhythms and syntax of Black American artists, Beethoven’s “Harp” Quartet builds an intricate argument from concise motives among four equal voices, JacobTV turns the language of a television advertisement into rhythm and satire, and Shostakovich’s Third Quartet carries war-related movement titles that were never printed in the score. Across these four works, meaning is spoken, encoded, disguised, and recovered.
An alternate to Blueprint. Where a venue lacks the sound system required for playback, Julia Adolphe’s Star-Crossed Signals can replace The Body of Your Dreams.
Program One
Muse
- Debussy String Quartet in G minor, Op. 10
- Philip Glass String Quartet No. 4 “Buczak”
- Intermission
- Stravinsky Three Pieces for String Quartet
- Mendelssohn String Quartet No. 3 in D major, Op. 44, No. 1
This program celebrates the interplay between music and visual art. Stravinsky’s creative circle included Pablo Picasso, while Philip Glass’s Fourth Quartet is dedicated to the memory of artist Geoffrey Buczak. Mendelssohn himself was an accomplished visual artist, and Debussy’s quartet evokes the shimmering colors and atmosphere of French Impressionism. Together, these works explore how sound can reflect, respond to, and inspire the visual imagination.
Program Two
First Loves
- Mozart String Quartet No. 19 in C major, K. 465 “Dissonance”
- Weinberg String Quartet No. 6 in E minor, Op. 35
- Intermission
- Mendelssohn String Quartet No. 4 in E minor, Op. 44, No. 2
Mozart considered his set of six quartets dedicated to Haydn as his “children,” with the “Dissonance” Quartet standing among the most enduring. Weinberg’s Sixth Quartet, similarly uncommissioned, reflects a profound devotion to the medium; despite being composed in 1946 and admired by contemporaries, it was not premiered until 2007. Mendelssohn’s E-minor Quartet, written during his honeymoon, represents a joyful new beginning, infused with lyricism and vitality.
Program Three
At Twilight
- Borodin String Quartet No. 2 in D major
- Dutilleux Ainsi la nuit
- Intermission
- Schubert String Quartet No. 15 in G major, D. 887
Written feverishly over just ten days, Schubert’s last string quartet anchors this exploration of night and introspection. Paired with Borodin’s lyrical Second Quartet and Dutilleux’s Ainsi la nuit, the program moves through twilight into darkness, capturing the stillness, mystery, and celestial beauty of the nocturnal world.
On Stage
Featured Projects
An American Story
Tenor & String Quartet
Tenor Ben Bliss and the [Verona Quartet](https://mkiartists.com/artists/verona-quartet) trace an American journey in “An American Story,” weaving jazz-age standards by Nat King Cole, Benny Goodman, and Glenn Miller in new arrangements by Peter Myers together with English art song by Rubbra and Bax and contemporary voices including Rhiannon Giddens and Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate.
American Anthem
String Quintet (two violas)
For “American Anthem,” the [Verona Quartet](https://mkiartists.com/artists/verona-quartet) is joined by violist Jordan Bak for a program of string works enriched by the added sonority of a second viola. At its heart is Dvořák’s “American” Quintet, written during the composer’s 1893 summer in Spillville, Iowa. Springing from that tradition, Kenji Bunch’s String Circle celebrates contemporary Americana and its fiddle and bluegrass roots, while George Walker’s pensive Lyric for Strings opens the program with a bittersweet reflection that looks ahead to the voice that earned Walker the Pulitzer Prize.
Peter Pan
String quartet with narration
As part of their Global Storybook series of family concerts, the [Verona Quartet](https://mkiartists.com/artists/verona-quartet) is developing a newly commissioned work inspired by Peter Pan. Conceived in the spirit of Peter and the Wolf, the program pairs live storytelling with music for audiences of all ages. The composer and premiere season will be announced.
Verona Quartet & Simone Dinnerstein
Piano Quintet
The [Verona Quartet](https://mkiartists.com/artists/verona-quartet) joins pianist [Simone Dinnerstein](https://mkiartists.com/artists/simone-dinnerstein) for a program that bridges contemporary minimalism and the Romantic piano quintet tradition. At its center is Philip Glass’s The Hours, heard alongside the world premiere of a new work by composer Texu Kim and beloved piano quintets from the standard repertoire.
Verona Quartet & Steven Banks
Saxophone & String Quartet
Saxophonist and composer Steven Banks joins the [Verona Quartet](https://mkiartists.com/artists/verona-quartet) for a program built around two of his own works for saxophone and string quartet. The collaboration extends into the studio, where the artists are recording a new album for Phenotypic, with touring programs available to presenters.