Biography

Recent grand-prize winners of the 2007 Plowman National Chamber Music competition, the Alianza String Quartet has been described as “a showstopper” (Columbia [Mo.] Daily Tribune), “among the best in the USA” (Ezra Laderman, President of the American Academy of Arts and Letters), “a group of tremendous vision and integrity” (Clive Greensmith, cellist, Tokyo String Quartet). They received glowing reviews for their recent 2007 Carnegie Hall, New York debut when they performed Beethoven’s String Quartet Op.18 No.4 and the Mendelssohn Octet with their mentors, the Tokyo String Quartet. Bernard Holland of the New York Times reported that “the Alianza players are musical, well trained and have an unusually elegant sound. I do not fear for their future.” Another reviewer praised their “elegant phrasing – rock-steady intonation, burnished sound and lively, characterful playing.”

The Alianza String Quartet was officially formed in 2004 at Yale University’s School of Music. The quartet is comprised of members from the United States, Australia, Korea and Russia/Spain and is currently in residence as post-graduate associates of the Yale School of Music where it is mentored by the Tokyo String Quartet. As part of this residency, the Alianza Quartet also coaches graduate and undergraduate ensembles at the Yale School of Music and Department of Music in their capacity as teaching assistants to the Tokyo String Quartet.

The Alianza Quartet recently returned from successful summer residences 2007 at the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival and Pacific Music Festival (PMF), Japan. In Japan, they performed at the Sapporo Clock Tower Concert Hall, Sapporo’s Kitara Concert Hall, and the Hakodate Arts Hall in Hakodate. Their PMF residency culminated in a performance with members of the Tokyo String Quartet of Dvorak’s String Sextet at the Sapporo Art Park “Leonard Bernstein Memorial Stage.” Highlights of the Alianza Quartet’s 2006 summer included their European debuts at the Aldeburgh Festival, UK, the French Academy in Rome (Villa Medici), Italy, and the Aix-en-Provence Festival, France. While at these festivals the quartet were given the opportunity to work closely with pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard, members of the Berlin Philharmonic and Mahler Chamber Orchestra and composers Michael Jarrell and Jerome Combier, whose works they premiered.

Within the USA, the quartet has performed throughout the east coast and mid west with performances at Merkin Concert Hall and Juilliard’s Paul Recital Hall in New York City, Yale University’s Sprague Memorial Hall and British Art Center, University of Notre Dame DeBartolo Performing Arts Center, and the Missouri Theatre Center for the Arts, Columbia, Mo. They have been fortunate to coach intensively with the Tokyo Quartet, Syoko Aki and Aldo Parisot at Yale from 2004 until the present, and with the Juilliard String Quartet at the Juilliard Quartet Seminar in 2005 and 2006. They have won the Yale School of Music Chamber Music Competition and have been finalists at the Coleman National Chamber Music competition.

The Alianza quartet maintains a strong commitment to contemporary music. They have worked intimately with Yale composers-in-residence Ezra Laderman and Martin Bresnick, performing their quartets on new music concerts for Yale. Ezra Laderman has recently written his 12th and last string quartet for the Alianza quartet. The quartet is also in the process of recording three Laderman quartets for Albany records.

Engagements for 2007-2008 include the world premiere of Laderman’s newest quartet, performances in New Jersey, Washington, D.C. and Boston, numerous concerts in the Connecticut area.

The Alianza String Quartet is represented by Lisa Sapinkopf Artists and they are an organization member of Chamber Music America.