Philip Setzer and Eugene Drucker, violins

Lawrence Dutton, viola

Eric Wilson, cello

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The Emerson String Quartet was named a winner of the 1978 Naumburg Chamber Music Award. The Quartet formed in 1976 while its members were still at the Juilliard School. During those early years, the Quartet performed at the Coolidge Auditorium, at the Library of Congress, the Cleveland Museum of Art, Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In addition, they made a tour throughout the United States. The Emersons were one of the first quartets to have its violinists alternate in the first chair position. The Emerson String Quartet's name came from the American poet and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson,

Early critical acclaim:

"The four are first rate musicians who meet the challenges of their music head-on and emerge victorious. The Schubert Quartettsatz and the Debussy Quartet were done with absolute technical perfection and control." - Cleveland Press

"The technique of the young Emerson players are awesome. Each is a prize-winner and soloist...was schooled under the best."

-Robert Commandy, San Francisco Chronicle, January 1979

Naumburg Concert, March 27, 1979, Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center

Emerson String Quartet, 1978 Chamber Music Award

Philip Setzer and Eugene Drucker, violins; Lawrence Dutton, viola; Eric Wilson, cello

Program

Mozart: Quartet in C Major, K. 465 "Dissonant"

Smetana: Quartet in E minor, "From My Life"

Bartok: Quartet No. 5

For more than four decades, the Emerson String Quartet maintained its status as one of the world's premier chamber music ensembles. The Quartet made more than 30 acclaimed recordings, and has been honored with nine GRAMMY's (including two for Best Classical Album), three Gramophone Awards, the Avery Fisher Prize, and Musical America's Ensemble of the Year award. The Quartet collaborated with some of today's most esteemed composers to premiere new works, keeping the string quartet form alive and relevant. The group has partnered in performance with such stellar soloists as Renee Fleming, Barbara Hannigan, Evgeny Kissin, Emanuel Ax, and Yefim Bronfman, to name a few.

The Quartet's extensive discography includes the complete string quartets of Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Bartok, Webern, and Shostakovich, as well as multi-CD sets of the major works of Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, and Dvorak. In 2018, Deutsche Grammophon issued a box of the Emerson Complete Recordings on the label. In October 2020, the group released a recording of Schumann's three string quartets for the Pentatone label. In the preceding year, the Quartet joined forces with GRAMMY winning pianist Evgeny Kissin to release a collaborative album for Deutsche Grammophon, recorded live at a sold-out Carnegie Hall concert in 2018.

The Quartet balanced a busy performing career with a commitment to teaching, and served as Quartet-in-Residence at Stony Brook University, and continue to coach and mentor young ensembles through the Emerson String Quartet Institute at Stony Brook University. In the spring of 2016, the State University of New York awarded full-time Stony Brook faculty members Philip Setzer and Lawrence Dutton the status of Distinguished Professor, and conferred the title of Honorary Distinguished Professor on part-time faculty members Eugene Drucker and Paul Watkins. The Quartet's members also hold honorary doctorates from Middlebury College, the College of Wooster, Bard College, and the University of Hartford.  In January of 2015, the Quartet received the Richard J. Bogomolny National Service Award, Chamber Music America's highest honor, in recognition of its significant and lasting contribution to the chamber music field.

The Emerson String Quartet played their farewell concerts, October 21 - 22, 2023.