“Extraordinarily skilled, passionate musicians.”
–The New York Times

“…new-music string quartet, ETHEL, is fitted out like a rock band, with amplified instruments and sound-processing boxes and pedals of all kinds. The essential quartet sound is always there if the members want it — and often, they do — but they can charge into aural worlds that the Juilliard and the Emerson cannot.”
–The New York Times

“…avatar of ‘post-classical’ music—the virtuosic alternative string quartet…vital and brilliant.”
–The New Yorker

“ETHEL are an infectiously visceral quartet…their playing tends to be lusty, committed, charged with messy exuberance. They are heroically unafraid to make their instruments honk like geese or blat like car horns when the music calls for it.”
–Pitchfork

“They own their own music, and when they want it to roar, they roar.”
–Los Angeles Times

“Borrowing from rock’s defiant rawness, [ETHEL] spikes string-quartet suavity with grit reminiscent of photographic grain: scraping, vigorous bow attacks, the microtonal friction of bluesy inflections, the slight metallic buzz of amplification.”
–Boston Globe

“The potency of an amplified edgy rock band…crank up the intensity, and throw in some improvisation and you’ll get New York’s most daring string quartet sensation, ETHEL.”
–Strings

“Ethel manages a miraculous blend of vivid sonic storytelling with precision and passion, playing with a sense of deep conviction.”
–The Strad

“ETHEL’s distinction derives from a thoroughgoing virtuosity, a strong group identity that nevertheless encourages individuality, and the warmly inclusive embrace of their audience. In the hands of ETHEL, American music is alive and well.”
-The Washington Post

“(Documerica‘s) scope is nearly the size of the nation itself.”
–The New York Times

“For nearly 18 years…ETHEL has been exploding the boundaries of conventional quartet music by combining its classical training with rock ’n’ roll enthusiasm and musical traditions from around the world.”
–New Orleans Advocate

“The River resides somewhere beyond the intersection of ceremony and show biz, at a place where multicultural collaboration becomes sacred art.”
–Seattle Times

“This relentlessly inventive string quartet is setting the standard for new music engagement.”
–San Diego Union-Tribune

“ETHEL…created a world in which classical music had never grown distant, a world in which it was fresh and direct as crowds dancing in the street.”
–The Wall Street Journal

“The all-encompassing foursome…enriches each style it touches, teasing out common threads between its classical formation and outlying impulses.” “Few musicians demonstrate the rapidly blurring lines between genres as comprehensively as string quartet ETHEL does.”
–Time Out New York

“…ETHEL attacked its phrases with dexterous exactitude. It was like watching four prima ballerinas dance a tightrope.”
–Seattle Post-Globe