Daniel Phillips, violin
Todd Phillips, violin
Steven Tenenbom, viola
Timothy Eddy, cello

The Orion String Quartet is one of the most sought-after ensembles in the United States. Since its inception, the Orion String Quartet has been consistently praised for the fresh perspective and individuality it brings to performances, offering diverse programs that juxtapose classic works of the standard quartet literature with masterworks by living composers. They remain on the cutting edge of programming with their wide-ranging commissions from composers Chick Corea, Alexander Goehr, John Harbison, Leon Kirchner, Marc Neikrug, Peter Lieberson and Wynton Marsalis, and enjoy a creative partnership with the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company. With over fifty performances a year, the members of the Orion String Quartet - violinists Daniel Phillips and Todd Phillips (brothers who share the first violin chair equally), violist Steven Tenenbom and cellist Timothy Eddy - have worked closely with such legendary figures as Pablo Casals, Rudolf Serkin, Isaac Stern, Pinchas Zukerman, Yo-Yo Ma, Peter Serkin, András Schiff, members of TASHI and the Beaux Arts Trio, as well as the Budapest, Végh, Galimir and Guarneri String Quartets. The Orion serves as Quartet-in-Residence at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and New York's Mannes College of Music and is the Resident Quartet at Indiana University's Jacobs School of Music. “A noisy standing ovation is nothing rare, and these players certainly deserved theirs after the stellar performance. But silence can be an even better indicator of a powerful performance. (A)fter the Adagio in the Mendelssohn,— the musicians managed to seduce the rustling, coughing, whispering audience into utterly silent awe.” The New York Times, 2007

During the 2008-2009 season, the Orion performs the complete Beethoven quartets in London as part of the inaugural season of King's Place, the first performance hall to be built in London in almost 30 years. Other overseas engagements include appearances in Norway, Taiwan and Korea. In North America, the Orion appears with clarinetist David Krakauer at Penn State University and in Boston, and with violist Kim Kashkashian and cellist Marcy Rosen in Philadelphia. The Quartet also gives four performances as part of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center's season in New York, including the inaugural re-opening of Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall. Other recitals are slated for upstate New York, Kentucky, Massachussets, and Providence, RI. The Orion began the 2008-2009 season with visits to the Risor (Norway) Music Festival, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, and Chamber Music Northwest in Portland, Oregon.

The Orion Quartet recently celebrated its 20th anniversary with a season that included a critically acclaimed reprise of their debut at the 92^nd Street "Y," and two world premieres, Lowell Liebermann's fourth string quartet and David Del Tredici's Magyar Madness, commissioned for the Orion Quartet andclarinetist David Krakauer by Music Accord. In addition, the Orion collaborated with Leon Fleischer at Ravinia and Ida Kavafian and David Soyer in Philadelphia. The Quartet finished its anniversary season in New York with a sold-out, all-Beethoven program at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.

The Orion has achieved an enviable reputation for its interpretations of Beethoven's string quartets, and has recently recorded the complete quartets for KOCH International Classics. The Middle and Late volumes were released over the past year and received high praise from critics. The Strad called the Orion's performances “powerfully persuasive,” BBC Music Magazine called the first volume “richly rewarding,” and Strings called the late quartets, “thoughtful, deeply felt, meticulously executed performances." The final installment of the complete Beethoven quartets is slated for release in early 2009. Outside of the recording studio, the ensemble first performed the entire cycle for the innovative Beethoven 2000 series of free concerts at Alice Tully Hall in May 2000, with additional outreach activities in four boroughs of New York City. Presented in conjunction with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Beethoven 2000 supported six New York community arts organizations in honor of their contribution to children's education. The Quartet has subsequently performed the complete Beethoven cycle in Kansas City, Pittsburgh, Deerfield (MA), Indiana University in Bloomington, Santa Fe, and San Juan, PR. A critically lauded, five-concert performance cycle in Pittsburgh took place over a period of only three days. The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review said, "The ensemble's performances had the seemingly infinite attention to detail - from the voicing of a chord to the nuance of a phrase - that results from their long and loving exploration of Beethoven's quartets."

The Quartet's recordings reflect its musical diversity. In addition to the final volume of the Beethoven quartets, releases this season include Leon Kirchner's complete string quartets on Albany Records. Past recordings include Wynton Marsalis's first classical composition for strings, At the Octoroon Balls (String Quartet No. 1) for Sony Classical, Dvorák's "American" String Quartet and Piano Quintet with Peter Serkin and Mendelssohn's Octet with the Guarneri String Quartet, both on Arabesque.

The members of the Quartet maintain a strong dedication to the next generation of musical artists and serve on the faculties of the Mannes College of Music, Curtis Institute of Music, Juilliard School, Queens College, Rutgers University and the Bard College Conservatory of Music where they teach private lessons, give chamber music classes and offer intensive coaching programs for young professional string quartets. They have also served as faculty members of the Isaac Stern Chamber Music Workshop at Carnegie Hall and the Summer Institute for Advanced Quartet Studies in Aspen. Since 1993, the Quartet has maintained a summer residency at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival that included a three-year project of commissioned quartets by Danish composer Per Nørgård, John Harbison and Chick Corea. The Quartet also premiered Marc Neikrug's piano quintet as part of the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival which was subsequently recorded with Corea's The Adventures of Hippocrates and John Harbison's Quartet No. 4 released on Koch Records in 2006.

Heard on National Public Radio's Performance Today, the Orion has also appeared on PBS's Live from Lincoln Center, A&E's Breakfast with the Arts, and three times on ABC-TV's Good Morning America. In October 2004, they participated in the first WNYC Radio collaboration with BBC World Service's popular syndicated program, Music Party. This special performance heard in New York and over 40 countries worldwide features works by Haydn, Beethoven, Ravel, Bartók, Chick Corea and Wynton Marsalis. Additionally, the Quartet was photographed with Drew Barrymore by Annie Leibovitz for the April 2005 issue of Vogue.

The Orion String Quartet gained immediate attention in the classical music world when its founding members, each with distinguished solo and chamber music careers, officially formed the ensemble in 1987. The Quartet chose its name from the Orion constellation as a metaphor for the unique personality each musician brings to the group in its collective pursuit of the highest musical ideals.

Peter Serkin, piano

Recognized as an artist of passion and integrity, the distinguished American pianist Peter Serkin is one of the most thoughtful and individualistic musicians appearing before the public today. Throughout his career he has successfully conveyed the essence of five centuries of repertoire and his performances with symphony orchestras, recital appearances, chamber music collaborations and recordings are respected worldwide.

Peter Serkin’s rich musical heritage extends back several generations: his grandfather was violinist and composer Adolf Busch and his father pianist Rudolf Serkin. In 1958, at age eleven, he entered the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia where he was a student of Lee Luvisi, Mieczyslaw Horszowski and Rudolf Serkin. He later continued his studies with Ernst Oster, Marcel Moyse and Karl Ulrich Schnabel. In 1959 Mr. Serkin made his Marlboro Music Festival and New York City debuts with conductor Alexander Schneider and invitations to perform with the Cleveland Orchestra and George Szell in Cleveland and Carnegie Hall and with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Eugene Ormandy in Philadelphia and Carnegie Hall soon followed. He has since performed with the world’s major symphony orchestras with such eminent conductors as Seiji Ozawa, Pierre Boulez, Daniel Barenboim, Claudio Abbado, Simon Rattle, James Levine, Herbert Blomstedt and Christoph Eschenbach. Also a dedicated chamber musician, Mr. Serkin has collaborated with Alexander Schneider, Pamela Frank, Yo-Yo Ma, and the Budapest, Guarneri and Orion string quartets and TASHI, of which he was a founding member.

An avid proponent of the music of many of the 20th and 21st century’s most important composers, Mr. Serkin has been instrumental in bringing the music of Schoenberg, Webern, Berg, Stravinsky, Wolpe, Messiaen, Takemitsu, Henze, Berio, Wuorinen, Goehr, Knussen and Lieberson, among others, to audiences around the world. He has performed many important world premieres, in particular, works by Toru Takemitsu, Peter Lieberson, Oliver Knussen and Alexander Goehr, all of which were written for him. Most recently, Mr. Serkin played the world premieres of Charles Wuorinen’s Piano Concerto No. 4 with the Boston Symphony under the baton of James Levine in Boston, at Carnegie Hall and at Tanglewood; a solo work by Elliot Carter commissioned by Carnegie Hall and the Gilmore International Keyboard Festival; and another work by Charles Wuorinen for piano and orchestra with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, also commissioned by Carnegie Hall. During the 08/09 season he premiered a fifth piano concerto by Mr. Wuorinen with the Met Opera Orchestra/Levine at Carnegie Hall as well as Mr. Wuorinen’s new piano quintet (commissioned by the Rockport, MA Music Festival) with the Brentano String Quartet.

Highlights of Peter Serkin’s recent and upcoming appearances include performances with the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia and Minnesota Orchestras, and the Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, Detroit, St. Louis, Toronto and Atlanta symphonies; recitals in Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, Orchestra Hall in Chicago and New York’s 92nd Street Y; performances with the original members of TASHI in Boston, Portland OR, Princeton and Town Hall in New York City; and summer festival appearances at Ravinia, Aspen, Ojai, Caramoor, Tanglewood, Blossom, Saratoga and the Mann Center with the Philadelphia Orchestra.

Internationally, Mr. Serkin returned to Japan in September 2007 to play recitals featuring the works of Toru Takemitsu and Bach in honor of the 10th anniversary of Takemitsu’s death and appeared with the Berlin Philharmonic, Deutsches Symphony Orchestra and the Bamberg Symphony.

Peter Serkin’s recordings also reflect his distinctive musical vision. The Ocean that has no West and no East, released by Koch Records in 2000, features compositions by Webern, Wolpe, Messiaen, Takemitsu, Knussen, Lieberson and Wuorinen. That same year BMG released his recording of three Beethoven sonatas. Additional recordings include the Brahms violin sonatas with Pamela Frank, Dvorak’s Piano Quintet with the Orion String Quartet, quintets by Henze and Brahms with the Guarneri String Quartet, the Bach double and triple concerti with Andras Schiff and Bruno Canino and Takemitsu’s Quotation of a Dream with Oliver Knussen and the London Sinfonietta. His most recent recording is the complete works for solo piano by Arnold Schoenberg for Arcana.

Mr. Serkin’s recording of the six Mozart concerti composed in 1784 with Alexander Schneider and the English Chamber Orchestra was nominated for a Grammy and received the prestigious Deutsche Schallplatten as well as “Best Recording of the Year” by Stereo Review magazine. Other Grammy nominated recordings include Olivier Messiaen’s Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant Jesus and Quartet for the End of Time on BMG and a solo recording of works by Stravinsky, Wolpe and Lieberson for New World Records.

Mr. Serkin currently teaches at Bard College Conservatory of Music and the Longy School of Music. He resides in Massachusetts with his wife, Regina, and is the father of five children.