Texas State University School Of Music Welcomes String Quartet In Residence

The Texas State University School of Music welcomes the Attacca Quartet as its inaugural Ensemble-in-Residence for the 2016-2017 season.

The quartet will give performances, collaborate with our world-class music faculty and provide a unique opportunity for students to work closely with an internationally touring ensemble.

The Attacca Quartet will present concerts on November 8 and April 4 in Texas State’s beautiful Performing Arts Center on the San Marcos campus. They will also rehearse and perform side by side with Texas State students for a chamber orchestra concert April 8, 2017. 

[Texas State Presents, Stars At Night] During both the November and April residencies, they will also coach student quartets, work with student composers writing for their instruments, and meet with children in the community-outreach program Texas State String Project.

The Attacca Quartet has established a reputation as one of America’s premier young performing ensembles.

Among their list of accomplishments includes First Prize winners of the 7th Osaka International Chamber Music Competition in 2011, Listeners’ Choice Award recipients in the 2011 Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition, the 2013 National Federation of Music Clubs Centennial Chamber Music Award, the Arthur Foote Award from the Harvard Musical Association, and the Lotos Prize in the Arts.

Previous engagements include a season as the Quartet in Residence for the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Formed at The Juilliard School in 2003, the Attacca Quartet celebrates its 13^th season. Members Amy Schroeder and Keiko Tokunaga, violin, Nathan Schram, viola, and Andrew Yee, cello, made their professional debut in 2007 as part of the Artists International Winners Series in Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall.

The quartet recorded the complete string quartet works of John Adams for Azica Records, released to great acclaim in March 2013. It was praised by Steve Smith of the New York Times as a “vivacious, compelling set,” describing the Attacca Quartet’s playing as “exuberant, funky, and…exactingly nuanced.” 

The Boston Globe also praised the release, stating: “Few [recent recordings] are as consequential as ‘Fellow Traveler,’…superb performances.”

The quartet tours the United States, Canada, South America and Europe.

Recent highlights include appearances in Madrid performing all of John Adams’s works for string quartet and soloing with the Spanish National Orchestra under the composer’s direction; tours of Ireland and Japan; a four-concert run at the Melbourne Festival in Australia; and residencies at the Virginia Arts Festival and Bravo! Vail Music Festival.

Previous educational outreach projects included serving as guest artists and teaching fellows at the Lincoln Center Institute, the Boston University Tanglewood Institute, Vivace String Camp in New York, and the Woodlands ChamberFest in Texas.

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Texas State’s School of Music is a vibrant musical community of more than 500 graduate and undergraduate music majors and more than 80 faculty. Its many learning and performing activities take place in six buildings on the San Marcos campus, including a beautiful and acoustically exquisite new Performing Arts Center.

Regular curriculum includes five choral ensembles, Symphony Orchestra, Wind Symphony and other concert bands, and the Bobcat Marching Band. Special programs include sound recording technology, Latin music, jazz, steel drums, gamelan, and the International Piano Festival. www.music.txstate.edu