A performance by the School’s faculty quartet-in-residence, whose music-making The Independent (London) has described as “passionate, uninhibited and spell-binding.”

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Brentano String Quartet

Yale University

Programs and artists are subject to change without notice. The Norfolk Chamber Music Festival follows all health and safety protocols required by Yale University.

Brentano Quartet

Yale School of Music

Brentano Quartet and Rieko Aizawa

Morning Concert

Libbey Park

Opening Concert

Libbey Park 

Since the group’s inception in 1992, the Brentano String Quartet has appeared around the world to popular and critical acclaim. “Passionate, uninhibited and spellbinding,” raves the London Independent; The New York Times extols the Quartet’s “luxuriously warm sound [and] yearning lyricism.”

Digital Concert: Brentano String Quartet

“My best advice is never to pass up an opportunity to hear the Brentano String Quartet,” raves The Strad, citing the group’s intensity, commitment, and intelligent interpretations.

New England Conservatory

The Brentano String Quartet visits Stanford University to perform an afertnoon recital and masterclass in Campbell Recital Hall

Braun Music Center

Since its inception in 1992, the Brentano String Quartet, composed of Serena Canin and Mark Steinberg (violin); Misha Amory (viola); and Nina Lee (cello), has appeared throughout the world to popular and critical acclaim. They were promptly recipients of several awards early in their career, including the first Cleveland Quartet Award and the Naumberg Chamber Music Award, and have since performed across five continents in the world’s most prestigious venues and festivals. The Brentano has been the quartet-in-residence at the Yale School of Music since 2014, following 15 years in residence at Princeton University. The Quartet has also launched numerous projects over the years that reimagine the standard concert program. For their Tippet Rise debut, the group will perform a program including works by contemporary Scottish composer James Macmillan, Henry Purcell, Beethoven, and Bach’s masterpiece Art of Fugue, which the quartet has examined at several points throughout their career.

Tippet Rise Art Center

SBC 2023 Festival Concert 2

Lincoln Theater Damariscotta

The Brentano String Quartet gives a lecture/demonstration focused on Fanny Mendelssohn, Felix’s talented sister, at the Frances Perkins Homestead in Newcastle.

“Fanny & Fannie” Lecture/Demo on Fanny Mendelssohn with the Brentano String Quartet

Frances Perkins Center

This concert is a favorite for all ages, and introduces children and adults to great chamber music in engaging and entertaining ways. Come sing, clap and enjoy a musical morning with our wonderful musicians. Hosted by Mark Mandarano.

Family Concert with the Brentano String Quartet 2023

Central Lincoln County YMCA

The New York Times praised their “luxuriously warm sound [and] yearning lyricism;” and the Philadelphia Inquirer observed their “seemingly infallible instincts for finding the center of gravity in every phrase and musical gesture.” Hear the Brentano Quartet joined by cellist Wilhelmina Smith in Steven Mackey’s quintet Joy Rhythm Study—a co-commission with the AMFS. In the composer’s words, “I began by exploring some rhythmic curiosities emerging from the confrontation/combination of seven in the time of two (or four) and then became preoccupied with the idea of transforming the resultant off-kilter experiments, hobbled oddities and precarious textures into something joyful through the course of the piece. The Brentano will also play one of Beethoven’s late quartets. At their British debut, the London Independent review raved, calling it “as momentous a performance of Beethoven’s Op. 130 Quartet as I’ve ever heard live… “Passionate, uninhibited and spellbinding.” The quartet’s affinity for Beethoven is reflected in its name, taken from Antoine Brentano, whom many scholars believe was the composer’s “Immortal Beloved.

Recital: Brentano Quartet with Wilhelmina Smith cello

Aspen Meadows Resort

Hair-raising....an ensemble of exceptional insight and communicative gifts.

Brentano Quartet
with Thomas Sauer, piano

Kleinhans Music Hall

Revered American soprano Dawn Upshaw and the unparalleled Brentano String Quartet come together for a new performance project. Sparked by the famous “Dido’s Lament” from Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, Dido Reimagined focuses on “the emotional journey of a powerful woman who has, in spite of her strength of character, been broken by love. Through the lens of the seasons, Dido discovers, confronts, and ultimately makes peace with her fate and with her place in the world” (Composer Melinda Wagner).

Dawn Upshaw | Soprano & Brentano String Quartet

War Memorial and Performing Arts Center

The School’s faculty quartet-in-residence unearths “startling musical revelations” (The Guardian, London).

The “magnificent” Brentano String Quartet (London’s The Times) performs in Zankel Hall Center Stage—an intimate, in-the-round setting in which audiences encircle the artists. For the occasion, the ensemble treats listeners to Haydn’s complete Op. 33 string quartets—the first set of works contemporaneously titled “string quartets” by the art form’s definitive composer. With his earlier compositions for four string musicians (including the foundational Op. 20), Haydn’s transformational influence on quartet music was already unmatched. When this immense set of music was unveiled to the world on Christmas Day 1781, it proved to be a true culmination of his efforts, showcasing the string quartet as a vibrant, richly varied, and virtuosic form of music that’s as riveting today as ever.

Carnegie Hall

Acclaimed for “wonderful, selfless music-making” (The Times, London), the virtuosic Brentano Quartet graces the stage at Caramoor once again. Revel in the timeless elegance of Haydn and Brahms alongside the debut of a masterpiece by the esteemed Chinese American composer, Lei Liang, in honor of his teacher Chou Wen-chung. Since its inception in 1992, the Brentano String Quartet has performed worldwide and achieved critical acclaim for its passionate, uninhibited interpretations and luxuriously warm sound that promise an afternoon of musical enchantment.

Brentano String Quartet

Feb 4, 2025