Quartet San Francisco
Encyclopedia
Quartet San Francisco is a non-traditional and eclectic string quartet
String quartet
A string quartet is a musical ensemble of four string players – usually two violin players, a violist and a cellist – or a piece written to be performed by such a group...

 led by violinist Jeremy Cohen. The group played their first concert in 2001 and has recorded four albums. Playing a wide range of music genres from jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 to blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...

, tango
Tango music
Tango is a style of ballroom dance music in 2/4 or 4/4 time that originated among European immigrant populations of Argentina and Uruguay . It is traditionally played by a sextet, known as the orquesta típica, which includes two violins, piano, double bass, and two bandoneons...

 to swing, and funk
Funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...

 to pop
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...

, the group challenges the traditional classical music foundation of the string quartet.

Quartet San Francisco won a tango music competition in New York in 2004, and their albums have been nominated five times for Grammy Award
Grammy Award
A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...

s: three in the Best Classical Crossover Album
Grammy Award for Best Classical Crossover Album
The Grammy Award for Best Classical Crossover Album was awarded from 1999 to 2011.The award will be discontinued from 2012 in a major overhaul of Grammy categories. Basically, the Best Classical Crossover Album category will disappear. If a classical crossover release is a non-classical artist...

 category, and two for Best Engineered Album, Classical
Grammy Award for Best Engineered Album, Classical
The Grammy Award for Best Engineered Recording, Classical has been awarded since 1959. The award had several minor name changes:*In 1959 the award was known as Best Engineered Record ...

.

Members

Quartet leader and violinist Jeremy Cohen founded the Quartet San Francisco as a forum to explore a multitude of musical styles that were important to him but were not being exercised in his work with other ensembles such as Turtle Island Quartet
Turtle Island Quartet
The Turtle Island Quartet is a San Francisco Bay Area based jazz string quartet formed in 1985 and still actively touring worldwide and recording...

. Oakland
Oakland, California
Oakland is a major West Coast port city on San Francisco Bay in the U.S. state of California. It is the eighth-largest city in the state with a 2010 population of 390,724...

-born-and-bred Cohen produces the quartet's albums on his own label, Violin Jazz. Classically trained under Itzhak Perlman
Itzhak Perlman
Itzhak Perlman is an Israeli-born violinist, conductor, and instructor of master classes. He is regarded as one of the pre-eminent violinists of the 20th and early-21st centuries.-Early life:...

 and Anne Crowden, Cohen's playing style shows influences from violinists Fritz Kreisler
Fritz Kreisler
Friedrich "Fritz" Kreisler was an Austrian-born violinist and composer. One of the most famous violin masters of his or any other day, he was known for his sweet tone and expressive phrasing. Like many great violinists of his generation, he produced a characteristic sound which was immediately...

, Joe Venuti and Eddie South
Eddie South
Eddie South was an American jazz violinist.-Biography:South was a classical violin prodigy who switched to jazz because of limited opportunities for African-American musicians, and started his career playing in vaudeville and jazz orchestras with Freddie Keppard, Jimmy Wade, Charles Elgar, and...

.

Alisa Rose joined Quartet San Francisco in 2009. Hailing from Wisconsin
Wisconsin
Wisconsin is a U.S. state located in the north-central United States and is part of the Midwest. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the north. Wisconsin's capital is...

, she has played in numerous bluegrass
Bluegrass music
Bluegrass music is a form of American roots music, and a sub-genre of country music. It has mixed roots in Scottish, English, Welsh and Irish traditional music...

 groups and at festivals such as Hardly Strictly Bluegrass
Hardly Strictly Bluegrass
Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, or HSB for short is an annual free music festival held the first weekend of October in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. From its outset, the festival has been subsidized by San Francisco venture capitalist Warren Hellman. The first festival was held in 2001, originally...

 in San Francisco and the Strawberry Music Festival in Yosemite. As a music educator, she is the director of a San Francisco Conservatory of Music
San Francisco Conservatory of Music
San Francisco Conservatory of Music, formerly the California Conservatory of Music, founded in 1917, is a music school, with an enrollment of about 400 students. It was launched by Ada Clement and Lillian Hodgehead in the remodeled home of Lillian's parents on Sacramento Street. It was called the...

 program at a city elementary school, and has written an instructional book aimed at music students aged seven to ten years old.

Keith Lawrence, member since March 2008, began learning viola
Viola
The viola is a bowed string instrument. It is the middle voice of the violin family, between the violin and the cello.- Form :The viola is similar in material and construction to the violin. A full-size viola's body is between and longer than the body of a full-size violin , with an average...

 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh is the second-largest city in the US Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Allegheny County. Regionally, it anchors the largest urban area of Appalachia and the Ohio River Valley, and nationally, it is the 22nd-largest urban area in the United States...

, at the age of 11, then sought undergraduate study at Oberlin Conservatory, taking instruction from Peter Slowik
Peter Slowik
Peter Slowik is a professor of viola and head of the string department at Oberlin Conservatory of Music, where he has earned the school's teaching award...

 and Roger Chase
Roger Chase
Roger Chase is a British violist who currently teaches at the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University....

. He attended the Henry Mancini Institute three years during his time at Oberlin. Until 2007, Lawrence undertook graduate studies at the DePaul University School of Music as a student of Rami Solomonow.

Michelle Djokic, cellist for the quartet, was a founder of Concordia Chamber Players in New Hope, Pennsylvania
New Hope, Pennsylvania
New Hope, formerly known as Coryell's Ferry, is a borough in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, USA. The population was 2,528 at the 2010 census. The borough lies on the west bank of the Delaware River at its confluence with Aquetong Creek. A two-lane bridge carries automobile and foot traffic across the...

, and has lived in the San Francisco Bay Area
San Francisco Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a populated region that surrounds the San Francisco and San Pablo estuaries in Northern California. The region encompasses metropolitan areas of San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, along with smaller urban and rural areas...

 since 2004. She served as assistant principal cellist of the San Francisco Symphony
San Francisco Symphony
The San Francisco Symphony is an orchestra based in San Francisco, California. Since 1980, the orchestra has performed at the Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall. The San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra and the San Francisco Symphony Chorus are part of the organization...

 for two seasons. She joined the New Century Chamber Orchestra
New Century Chamber Orchestra
The New Century Chamber Orchestra was founded in 1992 by cellist, Miriam Perkoff, and violist, Wieslaw Pogorzelski. The goal of the founders was to present classical music in a fresh and unique way in the San Francisco Bay Area. The music director chooses the programs and guides the artistic...

 in 2008. She has appeared on stage and in the studio many times as a cello soloist, including Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....

 with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra
New Jersey Symphony Orchestra
The New Jersey Symphony Orchestra is a symphony orchestra located in the state of New Jersey, United States. Philip James founded the orchestra in 1922. The orchestra is headquartered in Newark, New Jersey. Neeme Järvi, the NJSO's music director from 2005 to 2009, is currently the orchestra's...

, and as accompanist to violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg
Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg
Nadja Rose Catherine Salerno-Sonnenberg is an Italian-born classical violinist, author, and teacher. She is a United States citizen.-Career:...

. Djokic married professional squash
Squash (sport)
Squash is a high-speed racquet sport played by two players in a four-walled court with a small, hollow rubber ball...

 athlete Mark Talbott
Mark Talbott
Mark Talbott is a squash coach and former professional squash player from the United States. He is widely considered to be one of the all-time great players of hardball squash .Talbott was ranked as the World No...

 in May 1989 after the two met aboard an airliner, on which Djokic was flying with her 1686 Francesco Gofriller cello, which has its own frequent flier account with US Airways
US Airways
US Airways, Inc. is a major airline based in the U.S. city of Tempe, Arizona. The airline is an operating unit of US Airways Group and is the sixth largest airline by traffic and eighth largest by market value in the country....

.

Past members

Joel Cohen, Jeremy Cohen's brother, played cello in the group from its inception to the recording of Whirled Chamber Music in 2007 and further into 2008. Cohen served as co-principal cellist with the Oakland East Bay Symphony
Oakland East Bay Symphony
The Oakland East Bay Symphony is a leading orchestra based in Oakland, California. The current music director and conductor is Michael Morgan, who has held the position since September 1990. The Paramount Theatre has been the home of the Symphony since the 1995. Bryan Nies has been Assistant...

 from 1979 to 1985, after which he lived in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

 to perform as principal cellist of the Vienna Chamber Orchestra
Vienna Chamber Orchestra
The Vienna Chamber Orchestra is an Austrian chamber orchestra based at the Vienna Konzerthaus....

. Cohen moved to the Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...

 area in 1997 and has been involved in various orchestras and chamber music groups including the Boston Symphony Orchestra
Boston Symphony Orchestra
The Boston Symphony Orchestra is an orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts. It is one of the five American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five". Founded in 1881, the BSO plays most of its concerts at Boston's Symphony Hall and in the summer performs at the Tanglewood Music Center...

. He is a member of the faculty of the College of the Holy Cross
College of the Holy Cross
The College of the Holy Cross is an undergraduate Roman Catholic liberal arts college located in Worcester, Massachusetts, USA...

 in Worcester, Massachusetts
Worcester, Massachusetts
Worcester is a city and the county seat of Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. Named after Worcester, England, as of the 2010 Census the city's population is 181,045, making it the second largest city in New England after Boston....

.

Emily Onderdonk, a San Francisco native, played viola in the group from it first recording in 2002 to early 2008. Onderdonk studied at Manhattan School of Music
Manhattan School of Music
The Manhattan School of Music is a major music conservatory located on the Upper West Side of New York City. The school offers degrees on the bachelors, masters, and doctoral levels in the areas of classical and jazz performance and composition...

, earning her Bachelor's and Master's degrees, after which she enrolled in post-graduate studies at Boston University
Boston University
Boston University is a private research university located in Boston, Massachusetts. With more than 4,000 faculty members and more than 31,000 students, Boston University is one of the largest private universities in the United States and one of Boston's largest employers...

 and the New England Conservatory of Music
New England Conservatory of Music
The New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, Massachusetts, is the oldest independent school of music in the United States.The conservatory is home each year to 750 students pursuing undergraduate and graduate studies along with 1400 more in its Preparatory School as well as the School of...

. She has served as principal violinist for the New York City Opera
New York City Opera
The New York City Opera is an American opera company located in New York City.The company, called "the people's opera" by New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, was founded in 1943 with the aim of making opera financially accessible to a wide audience, producing an innovative choice of repertory, and...

 National Company, the Santa Fe Pro Musica Chamber Orchestra, the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra, the Reno Philharmonic Orchestra
Reno Philharmonic Orchestra
The Reno Philharmonic Orchestra is a professional symphony orchestra based in Reno, Nevada. Its season runs from late September through April. The current music director is Laura Jackson.-History and Organizational Facts:...

, the Opéra National de Lyon
Opéra National de Lyon
Opéra National de Lyon is an opera company in Lyon, France which performs in the Nouvel Opéra, a modernized version in 1993 of the original 1831 opera house.The inaugural performance of François-Adrien Boïeldieu's La Dame blanche was given on 1 July 1831...

touring Europe, and the Sacramento Philharmonic Orchestra
Sacramento Philharmonic Orchestra
The Sacramento Philharmonic is a symphony orchestra in the Sacramento region, established in 1997 after the disbandment of the Sacramento Symphony that same year...

.

Kayo Miki helped Quartet San Francisco win the Grand Prize at a tango music competition in May 2004, held at the auditorium of the Consulate General of Argentina in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

. The prize included a trip to Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...

 where the quartet performed at Cafe Tortoni and other classic tango dance venues. Born in Nanaimo, British Columbia
British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...

, Miki studied violin at the Hochschule Mozarteum in Salzburg
Salzburg
-Population development:In 1935, the population significantly increased when Salzburg absorbed adjacent municipalities. After World War II, numerous refugees found a new home in the city. New residential space was created for American soldiers of the postwar Occupation, and could be used for...

 and she earned Bachelor's and Master's degrees from the Eastman School of Music
Eastman School of Music
The Eastman School of Music is a music conservatory located in Rochester, New York. The Eastman School is a professional school within the University of Rochester...

.

Dawn Harms, a cousin of musician Tom Waits
Tom Waits
Thomas Alan "Tom" Waits is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car."...

, played violin in the group from 2002 until 2004. Harms has collaborated with a number of ensembles, including ten years as first violinist of the Harrington String Quartet, and five years with the Santa Fe Opera
Santa Fe Opera
The Santa Fe Opera is an American opera company, located north of Santa Fe in the U.S. state of New Mexico, headquartered on a former guest ranch of .-General history:...

. She is co-concertmaster of the Oakland East Bay Symphony, and concertmaster with the Santa Fe Pro Musica Chamber Orchestra. She is on the faculty of the Music Department at Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...

.

James "Jim" Shallenberger, a founding member of the Kronos Quartet
Kronos Quartet
Kronos Quartet is a string quartet founded by violinist David Harrington in 1973 in Seattle, Washington. Since 1978, the quartet has been based in San Francisco, California. The longest-running combination of performers had Harrington and John Sherba on violin, Hank Dutt on viola, and Joan...

, played violin on the 2002 recording Quartet San Francisco. Shallenberger is a member of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra and the San Francisco Opera and Ballet Orchestras, and is one of the extended faculty of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

Albums

QSF Plays Brubeck was released in 2009, and became the group's third consecutive nomination for Best Classical Crossover Album. The Dave Brubeck
Dave Brubeck
David Warren "Dave" Brubeck is an American jazz pianist. He has written a number of jazz standards, including "In Your Own Sweet Way" and "The Duke". Brubeck's style ranges from refined to bombastic, reflecting his mother's attempts at classical training and his improvisational skills...

-inspired recording was also nominated for Best Engineered Album, Classical, honoring Judy Kirschner who recorded and mastered the album at Skywalker Sound
Skywalker Sound
Skywalker Sound is the sound effects, sound editing, sound design, sound mixing and music recording division of George Lucas' Lucas Digital motion picture group. Its main facilities are located in Lucas Valley, near Nicasio, California...

. The album is the first all-Brubeck string quartet
String quartet
A string quartet is a musical ensemble of four string players – usually two violin players, a violist and a cellist – or a piece written to be performed by such a group...

 recording.

The group released Whirled Chamber Music as a "mixture of American genres – blues, funk, jazz, tango, and rock." Among the 18 tunes are 7 composed by Raymond Scott
Raymond Scott
Raymond Scott was an American composer, band leader, pianist, engineer, recording studio maverick, and electronic instrument inventor....

. The album was recorded June 12–15, 2007 at Skywalker Sound with veteran audio engineer Leslie Ann Jones
Leslie Ann Jones
Leslie Ann Jones is a multiple Grammy Award-winning recording engineer working as Director of Music Recording and Scoring at Skywalker Sound, a Lucasfilm, Ltd. company. She is a past Chair of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences Board of Trustees, the organization that awards Grammys...

. Whirled Chamber Music was nominated for Best Classical Crossover Album.

Látigo, their 2006 CD which featured a number of tangos and Latin-inspired compositions, was nominated for Best Classical Crossover Album and Best Engineered Album, Classical. It was recorded August 22–24, 2005 at Skywalker Sound, with Jones as audio engineer, Kirschner as mixing engineer, and Bernie Grundman
Bernie Grundman
-Biography:He is most known for his mastering work and his studio, Bernie Grundman Mastering, which he opened in 1983 in Hollywood. The studio, which includes engineers Chris Bellman, Patricia Sullivan and Brian Gardner, mastered 37 projects which received Grammy Award nominations in 2005.Grundman...

 as mastering engineer.

Quartet San Francisco, the group's initial self-titled album, debuted in 2002. Cohen was joined by James Shallenberger on violin, Emily Onderdonk on viola, Joel Cohen on cello, and three tracks included James Kerwin on bass violin
Bass violin
Bass violin is the generic modern term used to denote various 16th- and 17th-century forms of bass instruments of the violin family. They were the direct ancestor of the modern cello. Bass violins were usually somewhat larger than the modern cello, but tuned the same or sometimes just one step...

. Cohen included compositions by Scott and Brubeck, four Argentine tangos, and selections by Henry Mancini
Henry Mancini
Henry Mancini was an American composer, conductor and arranger, best remembered for his film and television scores. He won a record number of Grammy Awards , plus a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award posthumously in 1995...

 and Stevie Wonder
Stevie Wonder
Stevland Hardaway Morris , better known by his stage name Stevie Wonder, is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer and activist...

.
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