Composers String Quartet

The Composers String Quartet was a string quartet best known for performances of new works by contemporary composers [cite web | url=http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D06EFD61339F934A15752C1A964948260 | title= CHAMBER: COMPOSERS QUARTET | date=1982-11-27] , including quartets by Elliott Carter ["The Carter Vogue", TIME Magazine, Feb. 10, 1975] and Ruth Crawford Seeger. [cite web | url=http://depthome.brooklyn.cuny.edu/isam/tick.html | title=Ruth Crawford Seeger's Different Tunes | last=Tick | first=Judith] Carter's Fourth Quartet was dedicated to the Composers Quartet, who premiered the work in 1986. ["Elliott Carter: String Quartet No. 4", Notes, 48:2 (Dec. 1991), p. 689.] The group has performed quartets by more than 60 American composers, and has toured abroad extensively. [New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians]

The quartet was founded in 1965 [cite web | url=http://www.mtdesertfestival.org/about_us.htm | title=About the Mt. Desert Festival of Chamber Music] , and remained active until the late 1990s. During the early 1970s it was the quartet-in-residence at New England Conservatory, where it sponsored a biennial composition prize. [New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians] In 1975 the group became the quartet-in-residence at Columbia University, remaining at Columbia for at least two decades. [ [http://columbiauniversity.net/cu/record/archives/vol20/vol20_iss8/record2008.31.html Composers String Quartet to Perform at Miller] , Columbia University Record, Oct. 28, 1994, Vol. 20, No. 8]

Members

*Matthew Raimondi, violin
*Anahid Ajemian, violin
*Bernard Zaslav, viola (succeeded by Jean Dupouy, Jean Dane, and Ron Carbone; the quartet also recorded with violist Maureen Gallagher)
*Seymour Barab, cello (succeeded by Michael Rudiakov and Mark Shuman)

References