“…nothing short of phenomenal…” – The Telegraph

With a career spanning three decades, the multiple Grammy Award-winning Pacifica Quartet has achieved international recognition as one of the finest chamber ensembles performing today. Known for delivering performances that are “engrossing, characterful…with a luminescent tranquillity [and] spine-tingling intensity” (The New York Times), the Quartet is celebrated for its virtuosity, exuberant performance style, and fearless repertory choices. Its sound, distinguished by “warmth of phrasing, dynamic control and superbly coordinated ensemble balance” (Gramophone Magazine), has solidified the ensemble as one of the most essential voices in American chamber music.

The Pacifica Quartet appears this season throughout the United States, with engagements in Detroit, Indianapolis, and Salt Lake City, as well as appearances at Duke University, the University of Notre Dame, and the UCLA Clark Library. In the 2026-27 season, the Quartet also returns to Centrum in Port Townsend, Washington, for a week-long residency of performances, teaching, and community engagement.

Formed in 1994, the Pacifica Quartet quickly rose to prominence, winning chamber music’s top competitions, including the 1998 Naumburg Chamber Music Award. In 2002, the ensemble received Chamber Music America’s Cleveland Quartet Award and was named to Lincoln Center’s Bowers Program (formerly CMS Two). Four years later, it received the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant, affirming its position among the foremost American quartets. With its powerful energy and captivating, cohesive sound, the Pacifica has established itself as the embodiment of the contemporary American string quartet sound. In 2026, the Pacifica received the Ruth Bader Ginsburg award from Washington Performing Arts.

An ardent advocate for living composers, the Pacifica Quartet has commissioned and premiered works by Keeril Makan, Julia Wolfe, and Shulamit Ran. Ran’s Glitter, Doom, Shards, Memory – commissioned in partnership with the Music Accord consortium, Wigmore Hall, and Tokyo’s Suntory Hall – received its New York premiere with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. In 2024, the Quartet premiered James Lee III’s Double Standard – commissioned by Carnegie Hall and Shriver Hall Concert Series – with soprano Karen Slack. Based on a poem by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, the work was widely acclaimed for its vivid narrative power, with one critic describing the performance’s “spine-tingling intensity” (The New York Times).

The Pacifica Quartet has proven itself to be the preeminent interpreter of string quartet cycles, harnessing the group’s singular focus and incredible stamina to portray each composer’s evolution, often over the course of just a few days. Its acclaimed presentations have included highly praised performances of the complete Carter cycle in San Francisco, New York, Chicago, and Houston; the Mendelssohn cycle in Napa, Australia, New York, and Pittsburgh; the monumental Shostakovich cycle in Chicago, New York, Montreal, and London; and the Beethoven cycle in New York, Denver, St. Paul, Chicago, Napa, and Tokyo, where the Quartet gave an unprecedented presentation of five concerts in three days at Suntory Hall.

The ensemble’s acclaimed discography reflects its adventurous spirit. Its Grammy Award-winning recordings of Elliott Carter’s Quartets Nos. 1-5 on Naxos and the complete Shostakovich cycle on Cedille Records – praised by The Telegraph as “nothing short of phenomenal” – are now reference points for those repertoires. Other notable collaborations include Leo Ornstein’s Piano Quintet with Marc-André Hamelin, the Brahms Piano Quintet with Menahem Pressler, and the Brahms and Mozart Clarinet Quintets with Anthony McGill. Their most recent Grammy-winning album, Contemporary Voices (Cedille Records), showcases works by Shulamit Ran, Jennifer Higdon, and Ellen Taaffe Zwilich; the Chicago Tribune named it among the “Best Classical Recordings of 2020,” praising the Quartet’s “unmistakable and apt ferocity.” A second recording with Anthony McGill, American Stories, featured world premiere recordings by Richard Danielpour, James Lee III, and Ben Shirley, as well as a piece by Valerie Coleman, and was nominated for a 2024 Grammy Award.

Based in Bloomington, Indiana, the Pacifica Quartet has served as full-time faculty and Quartet-in-Residence at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music since 2012. They previously held residencies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2003-2012), the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (2009-2012), and the University of Chicago, where they served as resident performing artists for 17 years.

For more information, please visit www.pacificaquartet.com.