Britain's Smith Quartet ranks among the leading ensembles devoted to contemporary music, having weathered multiple personnel shifts while establishing itself as one of the premier chamber groups specializing in that repertoire. Violinists Charles Mutter and Darragh Morgan, violist Nick Pendlebury, and cellist Philip Shepard established the ensemble in 1988; its roster during the 2010s comprised violinists Ian Humphries and Rick Koster, violist Nic Pendlebury, and cellist Deirdre Cooper. The quartet has placed orders for more than 200 new pieces with leading composers in the field, among them Jon Lord, Gabriel Prokofiev, Tunde Jegede, Donnacha Dennehy, Kevin Volans, Joe Cutler, and Michael Nyman, whose fourth and fifth string quartets the group captured for MN Records in 2018. Electronic and film scores have likewise formed part of its activities. Festival appearances have taken the ensemble to leading events throughout Britain and abroad; in 2015, while serving as Associate Artists at St. John's Smith Square London, the players presented complete traversals of the music of Nyman and Philip Glass together with works by Howard Skempton, Gavin Bryars, and Steve Martland. The quartet stood at the center of another landmark contemporary series, 2016's minimalism unwrapped, which featured the world premiere of Wayne Siegel's North Shore, a joint appearance with David Lang of the American ensemble Bang on a Can devoted to minimalist repertoire from the United States, and a return to the Nyman cycle. On screen, the musicians contributed to the BBC's 2005 documentary Holocaust: A Music Memorial Concert from Auschwitz, delivering Reich's Different Trains, a performance they subsequently released on the Signum imprint. Joint ventures have encompassed Malian vocalist Rokia Traoré, jazz pianist John Taylor, the dance companies Ultima Vez and Shobana Jeyasingh Dance, and the rock band Pulp. Most of the quartet's recorded output has appeared on the Signum and BBC labels.
