Ensembles

Annie Fullard, violin

Catherine Cosbey, violin

Eric Wong, viola

Kyle Barrett Price, cello

Described by the Washington Post as “completely engrossing, powerful, and elegant”, the Cavani Quartet has dedicated its artistic life to communicating the joy of discovery in the service of some of the most powerful music ever written. The Quartet's career maintains an energetic balance between performing masterpieces by composers such as Mozart, Beethoven, and Bartok; collaborating with living composers including Joan Tower and Margaret Brouwer; and creating new programming that joins multiple disciplines, such as visual art, poetry, and dance.The Quartet’s motivation to interact with all audiences enhances their approach to performing, teaching and mentoring. The Cavani Quartet is thrilled to shape the musical lives of the next generation through seminars that feature audience engagement and a "teamwork approach” to rehearsal techniques. The empathy and connectivity of chamber music is recognized by the Cavani Quartet as a metaphor for the kind of communication that we should strive for between cultures and nations. 

 Formed in 1984, the Cavani Quartet has toured throughout all fifty states, performing at some of the worlds most prestigious festivals and series including the Aspen Music Festival, New World Symphony, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, Kneisel Hall, Interlochen Center for the Arts, Madeline Island Music Festival, Chautauqua Festival, Encore Chamber Music, and the Perlman Music Program. The Quartet has been featured on National Public Radio's “Performance Today” and “Saint Paul Sunday”, as well as on syndicated quiz show "Says You!" The Cavani Quartet’s discography includes works by Ravel, Bartók, Dvořák, Schumann, Brahms, Shostakovich, Donald Erb, Chausson, Margaret Brouwer, and Primosch. The Quartet’s impressive thirty-year legacy has garnered significant recognition including the Ohio Governor's Award for the Arts, Musical America Magazine's Young Artists of the Year, Naumburg Chamber Music Award, the Cleveland Quartet Award at The Eastman School, and the ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming. The Cavani Quartet has commissioned, premiered, and performed the music of more than thirty living composers including Joan Tower, Erb, and Brouwer, and has collaborated with some of the greatest performing artists of today including Alisa Weilerstein, Itzhak Perlman, Sergei Babayan, Jaime Laredo, Joseph Kalichstein, Sharon Robinson, Kim Kashkashian as well as members of the Cleveland,Takacs, Juilliard, Tokyo, Ying, Emerson, Cleveland, Amadeus, and Guarneri Quartets. 

 Nationally recognized for their compassionate and superlative teaching, they have received a number of Chamber Music America Residency Partnership Awards, and in recognition of their performance, have twice won the Guarneri String Quartet Award for Artistic Excellence. For more than 30 years, the Cavani String Quartet served as faculty and Artists-in-Residence at the Cleveland Institute of Music where they developed and curated nationally acclaimed programs for student ensembles devoted to the serious study of chamber music. These include the Intensive Quartet Seminar, the Apprentice Quartet Program, the Art of Collaboration (rehearsal techniques seminar), and “The Art of Engagement: Careers and Leadership in Music”. The Cavani Quartet is proud and privileged to have mentored and taught members of many distinguished ensembles who have participated in these programs including the Jupiter, Miro, Dali, Verona, Daedalus, Catalyst, Omer, Fry Street, Biava,Telegraph, Ehnes, Verona, Maia, Linden, Harlem, Kasa, and Afiara String Quartets, as well as members of the New York Philharmonic, Minnesota Orchestra, Chicago Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, ECCO, A Far Cry, and The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. 

The Cavani Quartet frequently performs their electrifying, multi-discipline program COLLAGE: Music & Poetry, with poet and professor of Pan-African Studies, Mwatabu Okantah, at universities and in communities around the country. Other innovative programs include CONFLUENCE: New Music by Female Composers and The Art of Listening: Music and Color, as well as inspiring K-12 school workshop, MAP: Music, Art, and Poetry, and for igniting instrumental music programs for elementary school children, TEAM UP WITH MUSIC.© 

 The Cavani Quartet's unique approach to chamber music rehearsal techniques and mentorship skills have garnered national acclaim, and in collaboration with Dr. Dorianne Cotter Lockard, will be publishing a book: The Art of Collaboration: Rehearsal Techniques for Musical Team Building. The Quartet regularly provides their team management workshop, Coaching Strategies and Techniques: Building Empowered and Collaborative Teams by Applying Principles of Chamber Music Pedagogy for business schools and Executive MBA classes around the country including The Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University. 

 The Quartet has served as Visiting Artists at the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Southern Illinois Carbondale, the University of California, Riverside, the McDuffie Center for Strings, and The University of Iowa String Quartet Residency Program. The Quartet has been on the Advisory Board of Amateur Chamber Music Players and currently serves on the Honorary Board of the Suzuki Association of the Americas and is honored to participate in The Violins of Hope Project (violinsofhopecle.org). For more information, please visit cavani.org.