Ensō String Quartet

Maureen Nelson, violin
John Marcus, violin
Melissa Reardon, viola
Richard Belcher, cello

Winner, 2003 Concert Artists Guild International Competition

Second Prize & Pièce de concert Prize,
2004 Banff International Quartet Competition

The Ensō String Quartet, winner at the 2003 Concert Artists Guild International Competition, has been lauded for its “lyricism” (The Strad) and “crisp, incisive playing…with just the right quotient of sass” (The Ann Arbor News). The ensemble has earned its place in the chamber music world with high profile engagements, residencies, recordings and numerous competition successes.

Highlights of the Ensō Quartet’s 2007-08 season include performances at New York’s Schneider Concerts, Da Camera of Houston, the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton and the National Academy of Sciences (DC) plus engagements in Illinois, Ohio, California, Maryland, West Virginia, Texas and Oklahoma. In autumn 2007 the Quartet returns to the Cerritos Performing Arts Center, collaborating again with Rob Kapilow for his “What Makes it Great” series, followed by a Midwest tour, performing at the Mendelssohn Performing Arts Center in Rockford, IL, Bowling Green University’s Contemporary Art Festival and at Chicago’s Hideout as part of CAG’s New Music/New Places initiative.

The ensemble’s 2005 debut recordings on Naxos, featuring all six of Ignaz Pleyel’s Op. 2 quartets, has garnered rave reviews. The Strad hailed the release as “an auspicious start to the Ensō String Quartet’s recording career,” and The Gramophone praised the quartet’s “…lively and intelligent engagement with the music.” Also for Naxos, the Quartet recently recorded the piano quintets of Dohnányi (with pianist Gottfried Wallisch) and will record all three string quartets of Ginastera in fall 2007.

Prominent US performances include: Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center’s Great Performers Series, Merkin Concert Hall, The Kennedy Center, Library of Congress, Chicago’s Dame Myra Hess series, Ravinia’s “Rising Stars” series, Market Square Concerts and Chautauqua Institution. Internationally, the quartet has been heard in Panama, Costa Rica, Canada, England, France, Australia and New Zealand.

In summer of 2007, the ensemble returns for the second year as Quartet-in-Residence at the Boston University Tanglewood Institute and has a week-long residency at Interlochen. From 2004-2007, the Ensō Quartet’s members were Lecturers in String Quartet at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music, following a two-year graduate residency there. The group has ongoing residencies with Young Audiences of New York and Houston, Connecticut’s Music for Youth, Houston Friends of Music, Da Camera of Houston and the Houston-based new music organization Musiqa.

The ensemble received multiple honors at the 2004 Banff International String Quartet Competition, including the Pièce de concert prize, and claimed victories at the Fischoff National and the Chamber Music Yellow Springs Competitions. The Quartet has been featured in the American Ensembles column of Chamber Music magazine, and its performances have been broadcast on Saint Paul Sunday and WQXR-FM’s McGraw-Hill Young Artists Showcase, PBS, Chicago’s WFMT, Wisconsin Public Radio, Minnesota Public Radio, Houston’s KUHF, Australia’s ABC Classic FM, Radio New Zealand and Canada’s CBC radio.

The quartet formed in 1999 at Yale University and completed a graduate residency at Northern Illinois University with the Vermeer Quartet. The name Ensō is derived from the Japanese zen painting of the circle which represents many things: perfection and imperfection, the moment of chaos that is creation, the endless circle of life and the fullness of the spirit.