Biography
Covering classical repertoire and contemporary pop material while frequently fusing the two, the singing string quartet Well-Strung was established in 2012 as a hybrid of boy-band energy and chamber-music tradition. Their commercial breakthrough arrived with the 2015 release Popssical, which entered both the classical and classical-crossover charts.
Producer and manager Mark Cortale joined forces with violinist Chris Marchant, a Malone College alumnus who earned a degree in music ministry, to create the ensemble. After relocating to New York City in 2010 in pursuit of stage work, Marchant appeared in off-Broadway productions and toured nationally in Spring Awakening and Sweeney Todd, occasionally performing as an onstage violinist. Cortale first encountered him during a Cape Cod mounting of the revue Naked Boys Singing! and subsequently organized auditions in New York in early 2012 to complete the quartet. Marchant was joined by violinist Edmund Bagnell, violist Trevor Wadleigh, and cellist Daniel Shevlin. The group logged more than one hundred performances in its debut year and issued its self-released debut album, Well-Strung (also known as The Singing String Quartet), in 2013; the collection juxtaposed familiar classical selections with pop songs popularized by Adele and Kesha.
Popssical, which arrived two years later, blended reworked mashups such as Miley Cyrus with Grieg and the Black Eyed Peas with Mozart. The album climbed to number nine on the Billboard Classical Albums chart. In 2018 Marchant and Wadleigh competed as a couple on the thirtieth season of the reality series The Amazing Race. Later the same year Well-Strung issued its third album, Under the Covers, which reached number four on the classical chart and featured twelve tracks pairing Radiohead with Schubert and Lady Gaga with Vivaldi, among them an instrumental reading of the Beatles’ “Here Comes the Sun.”
Producer and manager Mark Cortale joined forces with violinist Chris Marchant, a Malone College alumnus who earned a degree in music ministry, to create the ensemble. After relocating to New York City in 2010 in pursuit of stage work, Marchant appeared in off-Broadway productions and toured nationally in Spring Awakening and Sweeney Todd, occasionally performing as an onstage violinist. Cortale first encountered him during a Cape Cod mounting of the revue Naked Boys Singing! and subsequently organized auditions in New York in early 2012 to complete the quartet. Marchant was joined by violinist Edmund Bagnell, violist Trevor Wadleigh, and cellist Daniel Shevlin. The group logged more than one hundred performances in its debut year and issued its self-released debut album, Well-Strung (also known as The Singing String Quartet), in 2013; the collection juxtaposed familiar classical selections with pop songs popularized by Adele and Kesha.
Popssical, which arrived two years later, blended reworked mashups such as Miley Cyrus with Grieg and the Black Eyed Peas with Mozart. The album climbed to number nine on the Billboard Classical Albums chart. In 2018 Marchant and Wadleigh competed as a couple on the thirtieth season of the reality series The Amazing Race. Later the same year Well-Strung issued its third album, Under the Covers, which reached number four on the classical chart and featured twelve tracks pairing Radiohead with Schubert and Lady Gaga with Vivaldi, among them an instrumental reading of the Beatles’ “Here Comes the Sun.”
Albums
