“In the hands of ETHEL, American music is alive and well.”
–Washington Post
BIO
The GRAMMY®-winning, fearless string quartet ETHEL has been an electrifying presence on the global stage, fusing virtuosic playing and innovation with the music of our time for close to three decades. Known for its “indefatigable and eclectic” (The New York Times) and “vital and brilliant” (The New Yorker) performances, ETHEL is a future-focused, pioneering musical force, having created a sonic legacy filled with poignant, evocative storytelling, heartfelt human connection, and the shattering of preconceived boundaries across sound and style.
Founded in 1998 in New York, ETHEL has appeared on some of the world’s greatest stages in all corners of the globe, from Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center to Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw and the Sydney Opera House. It has collaborated with an astonishingly diverse range of illustrious artists from Todd Rundgren and Joe Jackson to jazz legends Kurt Elling and Ron Carter, classical pianist Ursula Oppens, and in immersive shows with a stunning array of theater directors and choreographers.
PERFORMANCES AND COLLABORATIONS
The quest for common creative expression and building artistic relationships are at ETHEL’s core, opening ears and minds of audiences across the world. In addition to traditional recital formats, its acclaimed collaborative and multimedia productions have always been central to ETHEL’s identity, and include The Red Willow and The River, with long-time musical partner 2-time GRAMMY®-winning Taos Pueblo flutist Robert Mirabal; Signature Sessions , a supercharged survey of the quartet’s 25+ years of inspired music-making; Documerica featuring commissioned works by ETHEL ensemble members and four American composers, reflecting diverse regions and musical styles fused with Deborah Johnson’s projections drawing on spectacular photographs of 1970s America commissioned for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s “Project Documerica;” and Circus: Wandering City , which conveys the spirit of circus artists who bring excitement and mystery to one of America’s most popular cultural experiences, which premiered at The Ringling Museum marking 250 years of the modern circus.
ETHEL’s thrilling performances have riveted audiences from some of the world’s top stages, in every corner of the U.S., and in Western Europe, Russia, Mexico, and Australia, including Carnegie Hall, Venice Biennale, Sydney Opera House, Lincoln Center, Toronto’s Royal Conservatory, Kennedy Center, Park Avenue Armory, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, Brooklyn Academy of Music, World Financial Center, National Sawdust, and the Greene Space at WNYC radio; at festivals including the BAM Next Wave, Lincoln Center Out of Doors, Ecstatic, Grand Canyon, and Ravinia music festivals, NYC Winter Jazzfest, Kaatsbaan Spring, Holland’s TROMP, and the Festival Internacional de Arte Contemporáneo (FIAC) in Guanajuato Mexico. Recent and upcoming appearances include Carnegie Hall with legendary jazz bassist Ron Carter, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Arts and Design, Merkin Hall, Lensic Performing Arts Center, Segerstrom Center for the Arts, Las Vegas Chamber Fest, and University of Chicago.
Their newest program, Seasons Now , celebrates the 300th anniversary of Vivaldi’s timeless The Four Seasons pairing ETHEL’s signature arrangements of the Baroque concerti with new compositions by Ching-chu Hu, Layale Chaker, Leilehua Lanzilotti and Daniel Bernard Roumain. In development is Reimagine, a bold new evening-length collaboration and recording with two-time Grammy®-winning soprano Hila Plitmann and director/designer Doug Fitch, commissioning striking song transformations from seventeen of today’s top composers in all genres (from classical to jazz, rock, and indigenous) set with immersive visuals.
Composer performers—Ralph Farris (viola), Kip Jones (violin), Dorothy Lawson (cello), and Corin Lee (violin)—have themselves been commissioned by the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Georgia Tech, and the NEA. The quartet regularly performs music by such celebrated composers as Julia Wolfe, Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate, Marcelo Zarvos, and Leilehua Lanzilotti. It has worked with a kaleidoscopic array of legendary stars as well as emerging talents in virtually every genre, including Bang on a Can All-Stars, Vijay Iyer, David Byrne, Sō Percussion, Todd Rundgren, jazz legend Kurt Elling, Joe Jackson, Ron Carter, Stewart Copeland, Raven Chacon, Thomas Dolby, John King, Ursula Oppens, Laurence Hobgood, Jake Shimabukuro, STEW, and Lionheart. In creating its stage productions, the quartet has partnered with theater directors Annie Dorsen, Steve Cosson, Daniel Flannery, and Grant McDonald; projection designers Deborah Johnson and John Narun; and choreographers Wally Cardona, Gina Gibney, Annie-B Parson, Dusan Tynek, and Mathew Janczewski.
ETHEL has been featured at TED Conferences, on ABC Radio Australia, SiriusXM, Conan O’Brien, WNYC’s New Sounds, Performance Today, Randy Cohen’s Person Place Thing, NPR’s Weekend Edition, and on the soundtracks of Dan in Real Life and HBO’s Deadwood. During the pandemic, ETHEL curated and produced the Metropolitan Museum’s Balcony Bar from Home, a virtual series which has garnered nearly 2 million views.
PREMIERES AND COMMISSIONS
Premiering over 500 works, many of which were commissions or composed by the quartet, ETHEL is passionate about producing and supporting new work. The ensemble created the original score for Circus: Wandering City, which was commissioned by the Ringling Museum with support from the Brooklyn Academy of Music. ETHEL premiered Phil Kline’s Space at the reopening of Alice Tully Hall, Osvaldo Golijov’s Radio at WNYC’s Greene Space, and world premieres of Quartet for Queen Mab by Missy Mazzoli, and Blue Dress for string quartet by Pulitzer Prize winner Julia Wolfe.
The world premiere of Documerica, featuring commissioned music by Mary Ellen Childs, Ulysses Owens Jr., Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate, James Kimo Williams and members of the quartet, premiered at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Other recent premieres include works by Kevin James, Jerome Kitzke, Aleksandra Vrebalov, and Bruce Wolosoff.
The quartet is based in New York City, and ETHEL’s HomeBaked initiative commissions music from the city’s most exciting young, emerging composers. HomeBaked has launched new works by Andy Akiho, Olga Bell, Hannis Brown, Anna Clyne, Lainie Fefferman, Dan Friel, Avi Granite, Judd Greenstein, Sarah Lipstate, Matt Marks, Kyle Tieman-Strauss, and Ulysses Owens Jr. HomeBaked IV commissioned new works from Simon Brown, Sarah Goldfeather, Nailah Nombeko, and Sugar Vendil and debuted at National Sawdust, and were featured in a two-day festival at the Brooklyn Public Library.
RECORDINGS
ETHEL’s extensive discography includes ten feature albums on Cantaloupe Music, Sono Luminus, In a Circle Records, Innova, Azica, Tzadik, and Concord Jazz, including the GRAMMY® Award-winning Dedicated to You, with jazz legend Kurt Elling.
The Quartet’s numerous acclaimed recordings also includes its debut disc, ETHEL, which hit Billboard’s “Best Recordings” list; Light which ranked #3 on Amazon’s “Best of the Year;” Heavy, which was WQXR/WNYC’s Q2 radio “Album of the Week;” Documerica, which was featured in The New York Times which was featured in The New York Times “Press Play,” and on iTunes’s classical front page. The River features ETHEL’s long-time collaborator flutist Robert Mirabal, and was nominated for a NAMMY (Native American Music Award). The quartet recorded Oshtali: Music for String Quartet for the Chickasaw Nation – the first commercial recording of American Indian student work in our nation’s history. Recent recordings include Persist with flutist Allison Loggins-Hull and Vigil with Lebanese violinist and composer Layale Chaker. Upcoming releases include For Eli and Circus: Wandering City, both to be released on ETHELRecords and celebrated recently at a double album release concert at The Greene Space in New York City.
ETHEL has been guest artist on over a dozen labels, including: Cold Blue Two (Cold Blue Music); Glow by Kaki King (Velour Recordings); Blue Moth by Anna Clyne (Tzadik); A Map of the Floating City by Thomas Dolby (Redeye Label); The Duke by Joe Jackson (Razor & Tie); and John the Revelator: A Mass for Six Voices by Phil Kline, with vocal ensemble Lionheart (Cantaloupe Music).
COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
As passionate educators, ETHEL is dedicated to fostering the next generation of audiences and performers, and brings its innovative programs to schools and universities across the country. Offering a variety of inventive outreach and educational activities in conjunction with performances, these programs are warm and welcoming interactions with children, students, and adults. These include workshops and masterclasses, performances with community choirs or other arts groups, lectures and demonstrations, and improvisation and composition.
The ensemble has enjoyed relationships with organizations, communities, art centers, senior and veterans centers, and college and university campuses across the country. It conducts regular residency activities at schools and music programs in all five boroughs of New York City, held a long-term partnership with the Brooklyn Public Library, and was quartet-in-residence at Face the Music, a music education program at the Kaufman Music Center in Manhattan.
ETHEL is currently Ensemble-in-Residence at Denison University, a Resident Artist at Macaulay Honors College at CUNY, an ongoing resident ensemble at Peabody Conservatory, the Ensemble-in-Residence at The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Balcony Bar, and is developing AI and VR educational materials in a partnership with the University of Oklahoma School of Music.
