Bio
For nearly three decades, 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. The ensemble is a future-focused, pioneering musical force, with a sonic legacy of evocative storytelling and heartfelt human connection, and continues to shatter preconceived boundaries across sound and style.
Premiering over 500 works—many commissions—the quest for building artistic relationships is at ETHEL’s core. In addition to traditional recital formats, its collaborative and multimedia productions are central to ETHEL’s identity. Its thrilling performances on the world’s top stages range from Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, to Sydney Opera House, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, Ravinia Festival, Holland’s TROMP, Venice Biennale, and FIAC in Mexico. Upcoming is Reimagine, an evening-length collaboration with two-time Grammy®-winning soprano Hila Plitmann and director/designer Doug Fitch, commissioning song transformations from seventeen composers in all genres with immersive visuals.
Composer performers—Ralph Farris (viola), Kip Jones (violin), Dorothy Lawson (cello), and Corin Lee (violin)—have been commissioned by a bevy of institutions nationally, including the NEA. The quartet has worked with a kaleidoscopic array of legendary artists including Bang on a Can All-Stars, Vijay Iyer, David Byrne, Sō Percussion, Todd Rundgren, Ursula Oppens, Joe Jackson, Ron Carter, Stewart Copeland, Raven Chacon, Thomas Dolby, and Lionheart.
Its extensive discography features albums on Cantaloupe Music, Sono Luminos, In a Circle Records, Innova, and with jazz legend Kurt Elling, the GRAMMY® Award-winning Dedicated to You on Concord. Its album The River, with Robert Mirabal, received a Native American Music Award nomination.
Founded in 1998, ETHEL has appeared at TED Conferences, on ABC Radio Australia, SiriusXM, Conan O’Brien, 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’s Met Museum Balcony Bar from Home virtual series garnered nearly 2 million views.
Passionate educators dedicated to fostering the next generation of audiences and performers, ETHEL has innovative ongoing residencies at Denison University, Peabody Conservatory, CUNY’s Macaulay Honors College, The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Balcony Bar, and the University of Oklahoma School of Music.
(Full length bio is forthcoming)
For nearly three decades, 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. The ensemble is a future-focused, pioneering musical force, with a sonic legacy of evocative storytelling and heartfelt human connection, and continues to shatter preconceived boundaries across sound and style.
Premiering over 500 works—many commissions—the quest for building artistic relationships is at ETHEL’s core. In addition to traditional recital formats, its collaborative and multimedia productions are central to ETHEL’s identity. Its thrilling performances on the world’s top stages range from Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, to Sydney Opera House, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, Ravinia Festival, Holland’s TROMP, Venice Biennale, and FIAC in Mexico. Upcoming is Reimagine, an evening-length collaboration with two-time Grammy®-winning soprano Hila Plitmann and director/designer Doug Fitch, commissioning song transformations from seventeen composers in all genres with immersive visuals.
Composer performers—Ralph Farris (viola), Kip Jones (violin), Dorothy Lawson (cello), and Corin Lee (violin)—have been commissioned by a bevy of institutions nationally, including the NEA. The quartet has worked with a kaleidoscopic array of legendary artists including Bang on a Can All-Stars, Vijay Iyer, David Byrne, Sō Percussion, Todd Rundgren, Ursula Oppens, Joe Jackson, Ron Carter, Stewart Copeland, Raven Chacon, Thomas Dolby, and Lionheart.
Its extensive discography features albums on Cantaloupe Music, Sono Luminos, In a Circle Records, Innova, and with jazz legend Kurt Elling, the GRAMMY® Award-winning Dedicated to You on Concord. Its album The River, with Robert Mirabal, received a Native American Music Award nomination.
Founded in 1998, ETHEL has appeared at TED Conferences, on ABC Radio Australia, SiriusXM, Conan O’Brien, 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’s Met Museum Balcony Bar from Home virtual series garnered nearly 2 million views.
Passionate educators dedicated to fostering the next generation of audiences and performers, ETHEL has innovative ongoing residencies at Denison University, Peabody Conservatory, CUNY’s Macaulay Honors College, The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Balcony Bar, and the University of Oklahoma School of Music.
Press
Quotes About ETHEL
“Extraordinarily skilled, passionate musicians.”
“…avatar of ‘post-classical’ music—the virtuosic alternative string quartet…vital and brilliant.”
“They own their own music, and when they want it to roar, they roar.”
“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.”
“ETHEL is an infectiously visceral quartet…its playing tends to be lusty, committed, charged with messy exuberance. It is heroically unafraid to make their instruments honk like geese or blat like car horns when the music calls for it.”
“The River resides somewhere beyond the intersection of ceremony and show biz, at a place where multicultural collaboration becomes sacred art.”
“Ethel manages a miraculous blend of vivid sonic storytelling with precision and passion, playing with a sense of deep conviction.”
“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.”
“In the hands of ETHEL, American music is alive and well.”
“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.”
“This relentlessly inventive string quartet is setting the standard for new music engagement.”
“a heady mix of new and newer music intent on undermining expectations — in a thoroughly genial way…vitality and brilliance… stylistic omnivorousness was the order of the day”
Articles About ETHEL
Hailed for its “heady mix of new and newer music intent on undermining expectations — in a thoroughly genial way,” according to the San Francisco Chronicle, it has brought “vitality and brilliance [and] stylistic omnivorousness” and musical innovation to the world’s stage for over three decades.
In advance of ETHEL Quartet’s Carnegie Hall debut, cellist Dorothy Lawson speaks with US correspondent Thomas May about their collaboration with the programme’s featured guest artist, legendary jazz bassist Ron Carter.
The string quartet Ethel have been gleefully persistent in advocating for new music. Their repertoire includes hundreds of new works, and the players have been more than generous in introducing fresh voices to the chamber-music canon.
Photos
Media
“Circus: Wandering City” (Trailer)
Circus: Wandering City conjures the magic and mystery of the circus through the eyes and voices of the extraordinary artists who embody the stuff of dreams – to fly; to move mountains; to tame nature; to dance on air; to defy death. Commissioned by The Ringling Museum with support from the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
Ancient Airs and Dances: ETHEL plays Brandenburg 6
Kip Jones on Bach's Brandenburg Concerto no. 6:
It's a figment of our imagination when it comes to hearing this music that there's a point back then, and a point now, and we've somehow drawn a line between them. For us these pieces are not only a body of knowledge from the past, but living messages that we can breathe and sing and play. We love to sing; we love to play! If Bach had grown up in Macedonia he may very well have written the sixth Brandenburg Concerto in 7/8. I think he'd be in to what we're doing.
“Documerica” (excerpt)
At the BAM Next Wave Festival, ETHEL premiered one of its largest undertakings, "Documerica." This clip features music by Ulysses Owens, Jr.
The River by ETHEL + Robert Mirabal (Trailer)
ETHEL + Robert Mirabal tour their groundbreaking collaborative album "The River", recorded in Taos Pueblo, New Mexico.
Well You Needn’t: Ron Carter + ETHEL
Transcribed from Thelonious Monk: "Monk's Music" (1957) by Tom Darter, as heard on "Monk Suite: Kronos Quartet Plays Music of Thelonious Monk" (1985)
360 video – Valentine by Fred Hersch, performed by ETHEL
360 video recorded at The George Peabody Library.