The Composers Quartet

The Composers String Quartet was a string quartet best known for performances of new works by contemporary composers,[1] including quartets by Elliott Carter[2] and Ruth Crawford Seeger.[3] Carter's Fourth Quartet was dedicated to the Composers Quartet, who premiered the work in 1986.[4] The group has performed quartets by more than 60 American composers, and has toured abroad extensively.[5]

The quartet was founded in 1965,[6] and remained active until the late 1990s. During the early 1970s it was the quartet-in-residence at New England Conservatory, where it sponsored a biennial composition prize.[7] In 1975, the group became the quartet-in-residence at Columbia University, remaining at Columbia for at least two decades.[8]

  1. ^ "CHAMBER: COMPOSERS QUARTET". The New York Times. 1982-11-27.
  2. ^ "The Carter Vogue", TIME Magazine, Feb. 10, 1975
  3. ^ Tick, Judith. "Ruth Crawford Seeger's Different Tunes".
  4. ^ "Elliott Carter: String Quartet No. 4", Notes, 48:2 (Dec. 1991), p. 689.
  5. ^ New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians
  6. ^ "About the Mt. Desert Festival of Chamber Music".
  7. ^ New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians
  8. ^ Composers String Quartet to Perform at Miller, Columbia University Record, Oct. 28, 1994, Vol. 20, No. 8