Quartet San Francisco

Grammy-nominated Quartet San Francisco delivers an irresistible mixture of genre-bending world chamber music. Virtuosic and authentic tangueros, passionate jazz performers, playful and non-traditional in their delivery, QSF redefines the sound of chamber music and leaves concert-goers with a new appreciation for what can be accomplished by eight hands and sixteen strings.

Tango competition winners (New York, 2004) and 2007 double Grammy nominees for their latest release, “Látigo,” Quartet San Francisco expresses itself in its agility and standout virtuosic playing. Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, Quartet San Francisco is Jeremy Cohen and Kayo Miki, violinists, Emily Onderdonk, violist, and Joel Cohen, cellist. “Quartet San Francisco was born out of the desire to create a genre of string chamber literature which gathers its material from popular music elements of recent decades while maintaining the integrity and spirit of traditional chamber music” (Jeremy Cohen). The result is a string quartet whose members have come together with the unified purpose of performing multiple styles of interesting and engaging music -- from tango to jazz, classical to Latin, contemporary to world music -- using the techniques and performance practices authentic to each style.

Since its concert debut in 2001, Quartet San Francisco has offered its unique fare of musical styles to local, national and international audiences in a variety of venues that include tango and concert halls, jazz festivals, museums, and classrooms. In 2002 the quartet began its ongoing collaboration with tango dancers Sandor and Parissa. In 2003 the quartet shared the stage with flutist Hubert Laws and composer/pianist Billy Childs at the summer festival, “Jazz on the Hill,” at the College of San Mateo, CA. Quartet San Francisco has been presented by the San Luis Obispo Mozart Festival (San Luis Obispo, CA); the Vilar Center for the Arts (Beaver Creek, CO); St. Peter’s Church (New York, NY); the Los Angeles County Museum of Art “Sundays Live” Series; Dumbarton Concert Series (Washington, DC); Manhattan School of Music (New York); Berklee College of Music (Boston); Ford Amphitheatre (Los Angeles); and the Redlands Bowl Summer Music Festival (Redlands, CA). In 2005 QSF collaborated with Dave Brubeck at the at the University of the Pacific’s Brubeck Festival.

In 2004 Quartet San Francisco was awarded both the Special Prize and the Grand Prize at the New York City International Tango Competition, sponsored by the Argentine Consulate. Their award included five performances in Buenos Aires and New York in the 2004-2005 season.