PUBLIQuartet

PUBLIQuartet concentrates its energies on contemporary chamber music, presenting both freshly composed pieces and inventive reworkings of familiar repertoire. The ensemble draws wider listenership by weaving improvisation into its performances, incorporating strands from jazz and traditions across the globe.

Established in 2010 and headquartered in New York City, the group comprises violinists Curtis Stewart and Jannina Norpoth, violist Nick Revel, and cellist Hamilton Berry, who succeeded Amanda Gookin. Early recognition arrived via the 2013 New Music/New Places award from the Concert Artists Guild; four years later the ensemble received Chamber Music America’s Visionary Award for its inventive contributions to contemporary classical, jazz, and world chamber music. Its first appearance on disc came in 2015, joining the Soldier Quartet for In Four Color: Music for String Quartet by David Soldier. Later the same year PUBLIQuartet issued its own debut album on the CAG label. The 2019 release Freedom and Faith entered Billboard’s classical sales chart at number one.

The quartet became recognized for programs that juxtaposed canonical twentieth-century works with newly written music and improvisatory reinterpretations of existing scores. Some of these reimaginings appeared under the MIND|THE|GAP heading and were created collectively by the members, among them Bird in Paris, which blends materials from Charlie Parker and Claude Debussy, and What Is American?, derived from Dvořák’s String Quartet No. 12 in F major, Op. 96 (“American”). The latter composition featured on the ensemble’s 2022 album What Is American, released by Bright Shiny Things. PUBLIQuartet has performed at spaces that include Carnegie Hall, the Newport Jazz Festival, and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, while maintaining residencies at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan and National Sawdust in Brooklyn.