Praised for their “huge range of dynamics, massive sound and spontaneity” (American Record Guide), the Viano String Quartet is the First Prize Winner of the 2019 Banff International String Quartet Competition and the current Nina von Maltzahn String Quartet-in-Residence at the Curtis Institute of Music. Formed in 2015 at the Colburn Conservatory of Music in Los Angeles, the quartet has performed all over the world in venues such as Wigmore Hall, Place Flagey, Izumi Hall, Konzerthaus Berlin, and Segerstrom Center for the Arts.
The 2022-2023 season brings the Viano String Quartet on extensive tours throughout Europe, Canada, and the United States, with recital debuts in New York City, Hannover, Zurich, Budapest, Cologne, Heidelberg, Eisenstadt, San Diego, Denver, Calgary, Newport, and Philadelphia, among other cities. The quartet will also return to Southern Methodist University, where they are in residence through the 22/23 season.
Since the 2020 Covid pandemic, the Viano String Quartet has been actively presenting virtual and socially distanced live concerts for various organizations, including the Dallas Chamber Music Society, Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, Friends of Chamber Music of Troy, Corpus Christi Chamber Music Society, Salt Lake Chamber Music Society, Women’s Musical Club of Toronto, Schneider Series at the New School, Bravo! Vail Music Festival, Rockport Chamber Music Festival, and the Banff International String Quartet Festival. With their colleagues in the Calidore String Quartet, they presented a movement of the Mendelssohn Octet while distanced across countries in a film project “The Way Forward.”
The quartet achieved incredible success in their formative years, with an unbroken streak of top prizes. In addition to their career-defining achievement at the 2019 Banff International String Quartet Competition, they received the Grand Prize at the 2019 ENKOR International Music Competition and second prize at the 2019 Yellow Springs Chamber Music Competition. At the 2018 Wigmore Hall International String Quartet Competition they received Third Prize, the Haydn Prize for the best performance of a Haydn quartet, and the Sidney Griller Award for the best performance of the compulsory work, Thomas Ades’ “The Four Quarters”. They received the Silver Medal at the 2018 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, and Third Prize at the 2017 9th Osaka International Chamber Music Competition before any of the members turned 20.
Committed to engaging with communities outside the concert hall, the Viano String Quartet has given presentations for school children and students of all ages through residencies in Bellingham, Washington—the “Play it Forward” residency, a collaboration between the Bellingham Festival of Music and the Whatcom Symphony to reach school children in the northern Washington State area—Northern Michigan University, and the Santa Monica Conservatory. In 2019 they gave multiple performances of “Over the Top”, a Musical Encounter Interactive presentation they scripted, developed and performed at the Colburn School for inner city school children.
At the Curtis Institute, the Viano String Quartet is chiefly mentored by the Dover Quartet and other members of the Curtis faculty, including Shmuel Ashkenasi, Pamela Frank, Ida Kavafian, Arnold Steinhardt, Steven Tenenbom, and Peter Wiley. As the inaugural ensemble-in-residence at the Colburn Conservatory of Music from 2019-2021, they were mentored extensively by Martin Beaver, Scott St. John, Clive Greensmith, Paul Coletti and Fabio Bidini. The Vianos have also received coachings from artists such as David Finckel, Gary Hoffman, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, and members of the Alban Berg, Brentano, Emerson, Miró, Shanghai, St. Lawrence, and Takács String Quartets. They have attended the Ravinia Steans Chamber Music Institute, St. Lawrence String Quartet Seminar, Festival d’Aix en Provence, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, Great lakes Chamber Music Festival, and the McGill International String Quartet Academy.
Over the years, the quartet has collaborated in performance with artists such as Emanuel Ax, Noah Bendix-Balgley, Marc-Andre Hamelin, Rodolfo Leone, Eliso Virsaladze, and Orion Weiss, and look forward to collaborations with Inon Barnatan, Michelle Cann, and Roberto Diaz in the upcoming season.
The name “Viano” was created to describe the four individual instruments in a string quartet interacting as one. Each of the four instruments begins with the letter “v”, and like a piano, all four string instruments together play both harmony and melody, creating a unified instrument called the “Viano”.