Pacifica Quartet

resident ensemble

One of today’s most dynamic and exciting string quartets, the Pacifica Quartet continues to win the hearts of audiences around the world with its impassioned interpretations and unique musical voice. Formed in 1994, the Pacifica Quartet soon captured three of chamber music’s most important international awards, winning Grand Prize at the 1996 Coleman Chamber Music Competition, top prize at the 1997 Concert Artists Guild Competition and the 1998 Naumburg Chamber Music Award. In 2002 the Quartet was honored with Chamber Music America’s prestigious Cleveland Quartet Award and was appointed Resident Quartet of Lincoln Center Two.

The Pacifica Quartet’s multi-disc recording contract with Cedille Records has thus far produced acclaimed recordings of Dvorak's chamber works and the complete quartets of Easley Blackwood, with its next scheduled release being the complete quartets of Felix Mendelssohn. Pacifica made its debut at the Edinburgh International Festival in August 2003, with a performance of the five string quartets of Elliott Carter. Its active touring career has taken the Quartet as far afield as Australia, Greece and Panama, and on annual American tours coast-to-coast from Los Angeles and San Francisco to Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall in New York City. The Quartet can be heard frequently on Chicago’s WFMT and has been featured on several of the nation’s most prominent radio broadcasts, including National Public Radio’s Performance Today and Minnesota Public Radio’s St. Paul Sunday.

In 1999 the Quartet had the honor of being selected Quartet-in-Residence by National Public Radio in Washington DC, where it presented a series of live concerts broadcast over two weeks. A leading advocate of contemporary music, the Pacifica commissions and performs as many as eight new works each year. In the fall of 2003, the Pacifica Quartet became Faculty Quartet in Residence at the University of Illinois in Champaign/Urbana while continuing as Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Chicago.