Ciompi String Quartet Downtown Classics
Downtown Classics
Students from the Department of Music's Chamber Music Program
'Lyric Quartet' (Musical Portraits of Three Friends) William Grant Still (1895-1978)
I. The Sentimental One
II. The Quiet One (based on Inca melody)
III. The Jovial One
String Quartet in B-flat, K. 589 (1790) W.A. Mozart (1756-1791)
I. Allegro
II. Larghetto
String Quartet no. 12 in F Major, Op. 96 "American" Antonin Dvorak (1841-1904)
I. Allegro ma non troppo
Since its founding in 1965 by the renowned Italian violinist Giorgio Ciompi, the Ciompi Quartet of Duke University has delighted audiences and impressed critics around the world. All its members are professors at Duke, where they teach instrumental lessons, coordinate and coach chamber music, and perform across campus in concert halls, libraries, dormitories, and classrooms. In a career that spans five continents and includes many hundreds of concerts, the Ciompi Quartet has developed a reputation for performances of real intelligence and musical sophistication, with a warm, unified sound that allows each player's individual voice to emerge.
In recent years, the Ciompi Quartet has performed across the U.S. from Washington State to California, Texas, New York, Washington DC, and New England, and abroad from China and Taiwan to France, Italy, Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, Serbia and Albania. In June 2024 the Quartet performed in Vienna at a celebration of that composer's 150th anniversary sponsored by the Arnold Schoenberg Center. The Quartet has performed at the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival in Detroit, North Carolina's Eastern Music Festival and Highlands Chamber Music Festival, and at Monadnock Music in New Hampshire.
The Ciompi Quartet's commitment to creative programming often mixes the old and the brand-new in exciting ways. Most recently, the quartet engaged composers Alan Chan and Andrew Waggoner to write new works for string quartet and pipa, in a collaboration with pipa player Min Xiao-Fen called "An American in Shanghai: Forgotten Stories".
