Joseph Genualdi and Bayla Keyes, violin

Steven Ansell, viola

Michael Reynolds, cello

Winner of the 1981 Naumburg Chamber Music Award and 1980 Evian International String Quartet Competition, the Muir String Quartet first appeared on the scene in 1980, and was greeted with rave reviews and an extensive feature in the New Yorker. The quartet, along with the Juilliard String Quartet, were also featured on the internationally acclaimed PBS broadcast, In Performance at the White House for President and Mrs. Reagan.  

Formed in 1979 following graduation from the Curtis Institute of Music, the Muir String Quartet's principal chamber music teachers were Felix Galimir and members of the Guarneri and Budapest Quartets.

Some of the awards Muir has garnered include a Grammy (Beethoven Quartets Op. 132 and Grosse Fuge/EcoClassics), a Grammy nomination (Mozart and Brahms Clarinet Quintets/EcoClassics with Mitchell Lurie), two Grand Prix du Disques, and the Gramophone Award. The Muir's recording of the Kreisler, Berg Op. 3 and Schulhoff 5 Pieces was released on the KidsClassics label.

In its commitment to advancing contemporary American music, the Muir String Quartet has had commissioned works written for them by composers including Joan Tower (Night Fields), Sheila Silver (From Darkness Emerging), Richard Danielpour (Shadow Dances and Psalms of Sorrow), Richard Wilson (Third String Quartet), and Charles Fussell (Being Music).

The quartet also gave the World Premiere performance of the Native American collaborative work, Circle of Faith, featured on National Public Radio. Other premiered works include those by American composers Richard Danielpour (Feast of Fools, for bassoon and string quartet), Lucas Foss (String Quartet #4), Ezra Laderman (String Quartets #9 and #10), Joelle Wallach (String Quartet #3), and Ronald Perera's Quartet #1.

In 2013-2014, the Quartet continued its series at Boston University, Rhode Island College and with the Montana Chamber Music Society with a retrospective of works from old and new Vienna, and other performances around North America. The ensemble toured  China, with concerts and master classes in Beijing, Xian, Shenyang and Shanghai.

The Muir String Quartet has been in residence at Boston University's College of Fine Arts since 1983, and gives annual summer workshops at the Boston University Tanglewood Institute (BUTI).  The Muir Quartet has also given master classes at schools worldwide, including the Eastman School of Music, the Curtis Institute, Oberlin Conservatory, the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, and conservatories in Beijing, Shanghai, and Xian, China.  Since 1989, the quartet has presented the Emerging Quartets and Composers Program in Utah with eminent composer Joan Tower. This program is now part of the Muir's role as resident chamber ensemble with the Deer Valley Festival, in partnership with the Utah Symphony/Opera.

The Muir String Quartet has long been acknowledged as one of the world's most powerful and insightful ensembles, distinguished itself among audiences and critics with its "exhilarating involvement" (Boston Globe), "impeccable voicing and intonation" (San Francisco Examiner) and "unbridled musicality" (American Record Guide).

As part of their Naumburg award, the Muir String Quartet was given a commission, Richard Wilson's String Quartet No. 3, which received its world premiere performed by the Muir String Quartet on April 26, 1983 at Silliman College, Yale University (New Haven, CT).

Program note by Richard Wilson, String Quartet No. 3

"Each of the three movements of my String Quartet No. 3 bears a title and exhibits a perceptible formal design. The first is called, Prelude, not only for the obvious reasons, but because its prominent pedal point - the cello's C string - gives rise to a particularly anticipatory feeling. It may also be that in giving this movement a title, I thought of preludes of Bach and thier lavish pedal points. This movement resembles an arch. At its center is a section that builds up in stages to a dynamic high point. Before and after are passages NWCR602 - Richard Wilson: Page 2 of 3 making use of the cello's pedal point. Surrounding these passages are related outer sections: at the opening, a duet between the second violin and viola with plucked punctuation from the cello; and at the closing, an expansion of this music involving all four players to form a gentle code. The second movement takes the name Episode because it acts as a dramatic interlude at a certain remove from the main line of the work. Its character is a blend of scherzo and march. Like those forms, amd unlike the first movement, Episode has sharply articulated sections. These may be understood as ABA'B' show interruptions, intercalations, and elaborations of the original statements. With the concluding movement, Elegy, the slow harmonic motion of Prelude returns but instead of cold, open-string pedals there appears as underpinning the vibrant stopped note, C-sharp, which creates a relationship wherein the first movement acts as leading tone to the third. The Elegey is a refrain-dominated piece that is deeply serious in tone and manner.

String Quartet No. 3 was commissioned for the Muir Quartet by the Walter W. Naumburg Foundation. It is dedicated to th members of the Muir and to Leon Botstein. The Muir gave the first performances at Yale and Vassar in April 1983."

‍

Naumburg Concert, March 23, 1982, Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center

Muir String Quartet, Joseph Genualdi and Bayla Keyes, violins; Steven Ansell, viola; Michael Reynolds, cello

Program

Haydn: Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 4 No. 6

Bartok: String Quartet No. 5

Debussy: Quartet in G minor, Op. 10

‍

The New York Times, Review Excerpt, March 31, 1982

"The Muir String Quartet, winner of the 1981 Naumburg award for chamber music...Long before the evening ended, it was clear not only that the group can play, but also that it has the sound, the polish and the interpretive depth to rival the best in the world. From the standpoint of execution, the ensemble's greatest challenge, and its most impressive showing, came on Bartok's String Quartet No. 2 (op. 17), an unforgiving work that demands extraordinary discipline and flexibility. In all three movements, the Muir's playing was exemplary: tuning was exact, rhythm steady, the dovetailing of parts was seamless and the shaping of individual gestures and larger musical outlines thoroughly convincing.

The group's remarkably well-balanced sound also proved remarkably clean and transparent - a dream sound for a quartet - allowing details to emerge from within the texture, rather than seeming to be laid on top of it. In addition, to all of this, the fleet middle movement was played with extraordinary animation, and the outer ones with many felicities of expression that imparted a truthfulness to the piece's psyche." - Theodore W. Libbey Jr.

‍