©Photo: David Goddard

Attacca Quartet

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“Their playing is exuberant, funky and more exactingly nuanced.”
(New York Times)

Grammy award-winning Attacca Quartet, as described by The Nation, “lives in the present aesthetically, without rejecting the virtues of the musical past”, and it is this dexterity to glide between the music of the 18^th through to 21^st century living composer’s repertoire that has placed them as one of the most versatile and outstanding ensembles of the moment – a quartet for modern times.

Touring extensively in the United States, recent and upcoming highlights include Carnegie Hall Neighborhood Concerts, New York Philharmonic’s Nightcap series, Lincoln Center White Lights Festival and Miller Theatre, both with Caroline Shaw, Phillips Collection, Wolf Trap, Carolina Performing Arts, Chamber Music Detroit, Red Bank Chamber Music Society, Chamber Music Austin and a residency at the National Sawdust, Brooklyn. They recently performed at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, where they will return in 2020 and have performed a series of Beethoven String Quartet cycles both at the historic University at Buffalo’s Slee Beethoven Quartet Cycle series and at the New York and Trinity Lutheran Church, Manhattan, where they have a longstanding partnership. The upcoming season will see them debuting at the Trinity Church at Wall Street as part as their 12 Night Festival where they will perform the complete cycle of the Beethoven String Quartets. Attacca Quartet has also served as Juilliard’s Graduate Resident String Quartet, the Quartet in Residence at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Ensemble-in-Residence at the School of Music at Texas State University.

Attacca Quartet - Beethoven, String Quartet in A minor Op. 132 III. Heiliger Dankgesang © Attacca Quartet

Outside of the US, recent performances include Gothenburg Konserthuset, Sociedad Filarmónica de Bilbao, MITO Festival in Milan and Turin, as well as tours to Central and South America, and Japan; they will return to the latter in spring of 2020 with concerts in Osaka, Yokohama, and Nagoya, performing John Adam’s Absolute Jest with Nagoya Philharmonic and conductor Edo de Waart. They have previously performed this piece, under the baton of the composer, with Orquestra Simfònica de Barcelona i Nacional de Catalunya and Orquesta Nacional de España, and with Marin Alsop at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music. John Adams describes the quartet as “sharing his musical DNA”. The upcoming season will also see them debuting in London at Kings Place and Wigmore Hall, in Austria at Musik im Riesen Festival and in Oslo at the Vertravo Haydn Festival.

Passionate advocates of contemporary repertoire, the quartet are dedicated to presenting and recording new works. Their latest recording project, Orange, for which they have received the 2020 Grammy Award for best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance, features string quartet works by Pulitzer-prize winning composer Caroline Shaw. Greatly received and praised by the critics, it has also been featured in NPR´s List of “25 Best Albums of 2019” and “10 Classical Albums to Usher in the Next Decade” and in New York Times’ list of the “25 Best Classical Music Tracks of 2019” for their track Valencia. It has also been shortlisted for the 2020 BBC Music Magazine Awards.

Previous recordings include three critically acclaimed albums with Azica Records, including a disc of Michael Ippolito’s string quartets, and the complete works for string quartet by John Adams. The latter was praised by Steve Smith of The New York Times as a “vivacious, compelling set” and described the Attacca Quartet’s playing as “exuberant, funky, and … exactingly nuanced”. The album was the recipient of the 2013 National Federation of Music Clubs Centennial Chamber Music Award. Additional awards for their recordings include both the Arthur Foote Award from the Harvard Musical Association and Lotos Prize in the Arts from the Stecher and Horowitz Foundation.

Other accolades include First Prize at the 7^th Osaka International Chamber Music Competition, the Top Prize and Listeners’ Choice award winners for the Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition, and Grand Prize Winners of the 60^th annual Coleman Chamber Ensemble Competition.

The Attacca Quartet has engaged in extensive educational and community outreach projects, serving as guest artists and teaching fellows at the Lincoln Center Institute, the Boston University Tanglewood Institute and Bravo! Vail Valley among others.

Gallery

Attacca Quartet: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert © NPR Music

Star Wars - Attacca Quartet: May the Fource Be with You © Attacca Quartet

Haydn Op. 103 1st Mv © Attacca Quartet

Attacca Quartet with Caroline Shaw- Lincoln Center Offstage © Lincoln Center

“…a surprisingly powerful experience”

(Charlotte Gardner, The Strad, January 2020)

“The quartet matched with its own clean-edged sound, often without vibrato, alive to the vocal line’s every wax and wane and remaining glued to the music’s elastic tempos. Perhaps the greatest imprint on the memory is the atmosphere the musicians spun in the hall: one of profound silence, and even the room-filling fortissimo bursts felt weighted in that context, holding the audience’s attention to an unusual and moving degree.”

(Charlotte Gardner, The Strad, January 2020)

“The pieces on Orange shoot off in thrilling and unpredictable directions…the music of Orange excludes joy and a sense of wilderness”

Pitchfork

“They may be a relatively young ensemble, but already they come very close to epitomizing the string quartet ideal…Mastery like this is scarce enough in quartets that have played together for decades.”

The Washington Post

“exuberant, funky and…more exactingly nuanced.”

The New York Times

“The Attacca Quartet enthralled a standing-room-only crowd.”

The Strad

“the opening work on the recording [shows]…the Attacca Quartet’s superlative technical and artistic execution.”

Gramophone

“They are rollicking, raucous, and highly rhythmic and the perfect demonstration of the quartet’s ability to be precise.”

Strings

“…Seeing the Attacca Quartet’s incredible performance of his music. Three cheers to them for capturing the multiplicity of personalities embedded in Adams’ music.”

Bachtrack

“The highlight was the second movement, which is a gem, and was played with elegance and charm, but also a sense of relaxed enjoyment from a quartet steeped in contemporary “knowingness” playing music of an earlier, perhaps simpler, age.”

Artsdesk