Mark Steinberg and Serena Canin, violins

Misha Amory, viola

Michael Kannen, cello

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Since its inception in 1992, the Brentano String Quartet has appeared throughout the world to popular and critical acclaim. In 1995, they were named winner of the Naumburg Chamber Music Award.

Known for its unique sensibility, probing interpretive style, and original programming, the Quartet has performed across five continents in the world's most prestigious venues and festivals, thus establishing itself as one of the world's preeminent ensembles.

Dedicated and highly sought after as educators, the Quartet has served as Artists-in-Residence at the Yale School of Music for the past decade. They also lead the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival and appear regularly at the Taos School of Music. Previously, the Quartet served for fifteen years as Ensemble-in Residence at Princeton University.

In the 2024025 concert season, the Quartet premiered a program called "Evocations of Home" featuring a work by Lei Liang in honor of the late composer Chou Wen-chung. This past spring they performed Haydn's complete Op. 33 quartets at Carnegie Hall and in several other U.S. cities. Other projects included "Dido Reimagined" a monodrama for quartet and voice with soprano Dawn Upshaw, composed by Pulitzer-winning composer Melinda Wagner and Librettist Stephanie Fleischmann, as well as a viola quintet, "Heart Speaks to Heart," by James MacMillan.

In 1995, in addition to winning the Naumburg prize, the Brentano String Quartet were also named winners of the Cleveland Quartet Award. They have collaborated with such artists as soprano Jessye Norman, mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato, as well as pianists Jonathan Biss, Richard Goode and Mitsuko Uchida. The Quartet has commissioned works from composers including Bruce Adolphe, Matthew Aucoin, Gabriela Lena Frank, Stephen Harkke, Vijay Iyer, Steven Mackey and Charles Wuorinen.

The Quartet's notable recordings include Beethoven's Quartet, Op. 131 (Aeon) which was featured in the 2017 film "A Late Quartet," starring Philip Seymour Hoffman and Christopher Walken. as well as a 2017, live album with Joyce DiDonato, "Into the Fire - Live from Wigmore Hall" (Warner). Their most recent release features the K. 428 and K. 465 ("Dissonance") Quartets of Mozart (Azica).

The Quartet is named for Antonie Brentano, whom many scholars consider to be Beethoven's "Immoral Beloved," the intended recipient of his famous love confession.

The Brentano String Quartet were a featured ensemble on Naumburg's celebratory 50 Years of Chamber Music concert, that took place on October 8, 2021 in New York's Town Hall.

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Naumburg Concert, January 30, 1996 at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center

The Brentano String Quartet, 1995 Naumburg Chamber Music Award

Mark Steinberg & Serena Canin, violins; Misha Amory, viola; Michael Kannen, cello

Program

Vitezslav Novak: Quartet in D Major, Op. 35

Charles Wuorinen: String Quartet No. 2

Anton Webern: Five Movements for String Quartet, Op. 5

Beethoven: String Quartet in C minor, Op. 18, No. 4

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"The Brentano String Quartet is something special...Their music-making is private, delicate and fresh, but by its very intimacy and importance it seizes attention...As usual with this ensemble, the performances were full of life... They seem to be listening to the same heartbeat." The New York Times