The Orion String Quartet: Biographies

Daniel Phillips
Todd Phillips
Steven Tenenbom
Timothy Eddy

Celebrating 20 years of artistry, the Orion String Quartet is one of the most sought after ensembles in the United States. They remain on the cutting edge of programming with numerous commissions from composers Chick Corea, Alexander Goehr, John Harbison, Leon Kirchner, Marc Neikrug, Peter Lieberson and Wynton Marsalis, and enjoy a creative partnership with the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company. With over fifty performances a year, the members of the Orion String Quartet - violinists Daniel Phillips and Todd Phillips (brothers who share the first violin chair equally), violist Steven Tenenbom and cellist Timothy Eddy - have worked with such legendary figures as Pablo Casals, Rudolf Serkin, Isaac Stern, Pinchas Zukerman, Yo-Yo Ma, Peter Serkin, András Schiff, members of TASHI and the Beaux Arts Trio, as well as the Budapest, Végh, Galimi r and Guarneri String Quartets. Their repertoire this season includes cycles of Beethoven in addition to mixed programs of Haydn, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Bartók, Kirchner and Liebermann. The Orion serves as Quartet-in-Residence at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and New York's Mannes College of Music and, as of the 2007-2008 season, have been appointed Resident Quartet at Indiana University's Jacobs School of Music.

Since its inception, the Orion String Quartet has been consistently praised for the fresh perspective and individuality it brings to performances, offering diverse programs that juxtapose classic works of the standard quartet literature with masterworks by living composers. During the 2007-2008 concert season the Orion partner with clarinetist David Krakauer to perform a program featuring David Del Tredici's new work, Magyar Madness, a work commissioned by Music Accord specifically for the ensemble. The Orion will also collaborate with Leon Fleischer at Ravinia and Ida Kavafian and David Soyer in Philadelphia this fall. The Orion gives the world premiere of a Lowell Liebermann string quartet commissioned for the ensemble at the Canandaigua Lake Chamber Music Festival in February, 2008. In August 2006, the Orion String Quartet gave the world premiere of Leon Kirchner's String Quartet No.4 at La Jolla SummerFest with subsequent performances at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, also co-commissioners of the work. The Orion will perform all four Kirchner String Quartets once again this summer at the Great Lakes Festival.

The Quartet has achieved a reputation for its interpretation of the Beethoven String Quartets. In May 2000, the ensemble performed the entire cycle in a series of free concerts at Alice Tully Hall, with additional outreach activities in four boroughs of New York City. Presented in conjunction with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Beethoven 2000 supported six New York community arts organizations in honor of their contribution to children's education. The Quartet has subsequently performed the complete Beethoven cycle in Kansas City, Pittsburgh, Deerfield (MA), Indiana University in Bloomington. The critically lauded, five-concert performance cycle in Pittsburgh took place over a period of three days. According to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, "The ensemble's performances had the seemingly infinite attention to detail - from the voicing of a chord to the nuance of a phrase - that results from their long and loving exploration of Beethoven's quartets." The Orion's first album of a three-installment re cording project with KOCH International Classics, Beethoven Middle String Quartets, was released in March, 2007.

The Quartet's recordings reflect its musical diversity. For Sony Classical, the Orion recorded Wynton Marsalis's first classical composition for strings, At the Octoroon Balls (String Quartet No. 1). Commissioned by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the work was written for and premiered by the ensemble. Other critically acclaimed recordings include Dvorák's "American" String Quartet and Piano Quintet with Peter Serkin and Mendelssohn's Octet with the Guarneri String Quartet, both on Arabesque.

The members of the Quartet maintain a strong dedication to the next generation of musical artists and serve on the faculties of the Mannes College of Music, Curtis Institute of Music, Juilliard School, Queens College, and Rutgers University, where they teach private lessons, give chamber music classes and offer intensive coaching programs for young professional string quartets. They have also served as faculty members of the Isaac Stern Chamber Music Workshop at Carnegie Hall and the Summer Institute for Advanced Quartet Studies in Aspen. Since 1993, the Orion String Quartet has maintained a summer residency at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival that included a three-year project of commissioned quartets by Danish composer Per Nørgård, John Harbison and Chick Corea. The Quartet also premiered Marc Neikrug's piano quintet as part of the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival which was subsequently recorded with Corea's The Adventures of Hippocrates and John Harbison's Quartet No.4 released on Koch Records in 2006.

Heard on National Public Radio's Performance Today, the Orion String Quartet has also appeared on A&E's Breakfast with the Arts, PBS's Live from Lincoln Center, and three times on ABC-TV's Good Morning America. In October 2004, they participated in the first WNYC Radio collaboration with BBC World Service's popular syndicated program, Music Party. This special performance heard in New York and over 40 countries worldwide features works by Haydn, Beethoven, Ravel, Bartók, Chick Corea and Wynton Marsalis. Additionally, the Quartet was photographed with Drew Barrymore by Annie Leibovitz for the April 2005 issue of Vogue.

The Orion String Quartet gained immediate attention in the classical music world when its founding members, each with distinguished solo and chamber music careers, officially formed the ensemble in 1987. The Quartet chose its name from the Orion constellation as a metaphor for the unique personality each musician brings to the group in its collective pursuit of the highest musical ideals.