Miró Quartet

Artist Biography

The Miró Quartet, founded in 1995 at the Oberlin Conservatory and a returning White Pine Festival favorite, is one of America’s highest-profile chamber groups. This dynamic ensemble has quickly earned a reputation as one of the nation’s foremost string quartets, known equally well for their mature interpretations of traditional repertoire and their enthusiastic support of contemporary composers.

The dynamic Miró Quartet—violinists Daniel Ching and Sandy Yamamoto, violist John Largess and cellist Joshua Gindele—has risen to the top of the international chamber music scene in only a decade, captivating audiences and critics around the world with its youthful intensity and mature interpretations. The Miró Quartet is Faculty String Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Texas at Austin, one of only a small group of universities whose faculties include a world-class string quartet.

Founded in 1995 at the Oberlin Conservatory, the Miró Quartet met with immediate success, winning first prize at the 50th annual Coleman Chamber Music Competition in April 1996 and taking both the first and grand prizes at the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition two months later. Earning first prize at the 1998 Banff International String Quartet Competition, the Miró Quartet also won the prestigious Naumburg Chamber Music Award in 2000. In 2005, the Quartet was the first ensemble to be awarded the coveted Avery Fisher Career Grant, and received the Cleveland Quartet Award that year as well.

The Miró Quartet has been heard on numerous national radio broadcasts, including American Public Media’s Saint Paul Sunday and Performance Today. Internationally, it has been featured on radio networks across Europe, Canada and Israel. The Quartet has also been seen on NBC’s Today Show, ABC’s World News Tonight and on various programs of the Canadian Broadcasting Company. At the invitation of Isaac Stern, the Quartet performed in a live broadcast at the Jerusalem Music Center in Israel and was featured in the PBS-TV American Masters documentary “Isaac Stern: Life’s Virtuoso.”

The members of the Miró Quartet have a strong dedication to the next generation of musicians and were on the faculty of the Hugh A. Glauser School of Music at Kent State University, where they taught private students and coached chamber music. The Quartet has also been the Resident String Quartet of Kent/Blossom Music, Kent State’s annual summer chamber music festival, in cooperation with the Cleveland Orchestra. On short notice, the Quartet filled in for both Isaac Stern and Henry Meyer, leading master classes in Switzerland and Germany. In 2001 the Quartet and composer Brent Michael Davids joined with the Grand Canyon Music Festival to form the Native American Composers Apprentice Project, which teaches Native American students how to read and write music. The Miró Quartet also serves on the Advisory Council of Community MusicWorks of Providence, an organization dedicated to enriching the lives of Rhode Island’s inner-city youths and families through classical music.

The Quartet’s devotion to contemporary music has led to the commission and performance of music by such composers as Brent Michael Davids (whose quartet it performed at Carnegie Hall last season), Leonardo Balada, Maurice Gardner, Ezra Laderman, Chan Ka Nin and David Schober.

The Miró Quartet is named for the Spanish artist Joan Miró, whose surrealist works—with subject matter drawn from the realm of memory and imaginative fantasy—are some of the most original of the 20th century. More information about the Quartet can be found on its Web site, www.ClassicalLounge.com.