About

The Skyros Quartet brings a bright and inventive style to the performance stage.
Having recently relocated to the Seattle area, they can be seen performing,
teaching, and leading community events in their new hometown, as well as
concertizing around the US and Canada.

Founded in 2010, Skyros earned Masters in Chamber Music Performance from the
University of Texas at Austin Sarah and Ernest Butler School of Music, mentored by
the Miro Quartet and Sandy Yamamoto. From 2012-2015, they served as the first
Graduate Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Glenn Korff
School of Music, where they pursued Doctorates in Chamber Music Performance
under the guidance of the Chiara String Quartet.

Skyros has concertized extensively, traveling around Asia and North America as
well as performing extensively in the Austin and Lincoln areas. Skyros has also
performed at the Aspen Music Festival and School (Aspen, Colorado), the Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber Music Society (Ontario, Canada), the Sunflower Music Festival
(Topeka, Kansas), and the Deer Valley Music Festival (Park City, Utah).

In 2014, Skyros was invited to Ontario, Canada, where they were guest artists at
QuartetFest 2014 at Sir Wilfrid Laurier University (Waterloo, Ontario). In 2013,
Skyros toured China as part of an official delegation from the University of
Nebraska system, performing in Xi’an and Hangzhou. Skyros also received a
Hixson-Lied Student Presentation of Scholarly/Creative Activity Grant to tour the
Pacific Northwest and later in 2013, appeared at the Deer Valley Music Festival
Emerging Quartets and Composers Program with the Muir Quartet and Joan Tower
in Park City, Utah.

INTROSPECTIVE ODYSSEY, the debut album of the Skyros Quartet, was released in
August 2015 by Parma Recordings under the Navona label. The project was made
possible by a Hixson-Lied Student Presentation of Scholarly/Creative Activity
Grant. The album features three early twentieth century works by Benjamin
Britten, Joaquin Turina, and Jean Sibelius.

Skyros is passionate about educating audiences to the wonders of the string
quartet. They regularly visit schools, lead community engagement programs and interactive family concerts, enabling them to inspire audiences of all ages and
musical backgrounds. In the past two years, they have actively engaged and
interacted with hundreds of students in the Lincoln Public School system. Members
of Skyros have also served as faculty at Union College (Lincoln, Nebraska). At UNL,
they were Graduate Teaching Assistants for chamber music outreach and a
teaching-artist class that works with students to develop interactive presentations
for children.

The Skyros Quartet is passionate about the performance of new music and working
with living composers. They have commissioned and premiered string quartets by
Liza Sobel (Prayer, 2011) and Devin Maxwell (Bouquet Canyon, CA, 2013). They have
also worked with Tonia Ko (Aspen Music Festival and School), Charlie Leftridge
(University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the Esoterics), and Stephanie Martin (Sound in the
Land conference at the University of Waterloo). In 2014, Skyros was featured at
Fast Forward Austin, a new music festival in Austin. Skyros performed string trios
and quartets by the four composers of the W4 New Music Collective: Ruben Naeff,
Molly Herron, Matt Frey, and Tim Hansen. Skyros has collaborated several times
with composer Andy Davis for performances and recordings of several of his works
from many genres. In addition, Skyros made up the core string section of the UT
New Music Ensemble under the direction of Dan Welcher for its 2011-2012 season.

For more information about the quartet, educational programs, and their
upcoming debut album, please visit www.skyrosquartet.com.

Music

The following list contains a selection of concert offerings. Please contact us for additional repertoire.

Program No. 1: Transcended Folk
Folk music has long influenced Western art-music composers. Turina, Shostakovich, and Dvorak all embed folk tunes and melodies in these three powerful and passionate works.
Turina: La Oración del Torero, Op. 34
Shostakovich: String Quartet No. 3 in F Major, Op. 73
Dvorak: String Quartet No. 12 in F Major, Op. 96, “American”

Program No. 2: Dawn to Dusk
Delve into an exploration of colors, beginning with light: the rising figure that opens Haydn’s “Sunrise” quartet and the playful Divertimenti of a young Britten. The program concludes with Schubert’s infamous quartet: the stormy and fiery “Death and the Maiden.”
Haydn: String Quartet in B-flat Major, Op. 76, No. 4, “Sunrise”
Britten: Three Divertimenti
Schubert: String Quartet in D minor, D. 810, “Death and the Maiden”

Program No. 3: Intimate Voices
The string quartet literature of the 20th and 21st century is uniquely diverse. The first half of the program pairs a neo-Classical dance suite with works by living composers, to be announced. The program concludes Sibelius’ intimate “Voces Intimae,” the first major quartet of the 20th century.
Schulhoff: Five Pieces for String Quartet
21st Century work(s) TBA
Sibelius: String Quartet in D minor, Op. 56, “Voces Intimae”

Videos

Audio