Eugene Drucker and Philip Setzer – violins
Lawrence Dutton – viola 
Paul Watkins – cello 

The Emerson String Quartet has maintained its status as one of the world’s premier chamber music ensembles for more than four decades. The Quartet has made more than thirty acclaimed recordings and been honored with nine GRAMMYs® (including two for Best Classical Album), three Gramophone Awards, the Avery Fisher Prize, and Musical America’s “Ensemble of the Year” award. The Quartet collaborates with some of today’s most esteemed composers to premiere new works, and partners with such stellar soloists as Renée Fleming, Barbara Hannigan, Evgeny Kissin, Emanuel Ax, and Yefim Bronfman, to name a few. 

In the 2021-2022 season, the Quartet gives the New York premiere of André Previn’s Penelope at Carnegie Hall with soprano Renée Fleming, actress Uma Thurman, and pianist Simone Dinnerstein, before reprising the program at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. In addition to touring major American venues extensively, the Quartet returns to Chamber Music Society of Louisville, where they will complete the second half of a Beethoven cycle they began in spring 2020. Finally, the Quartet embarks on a six-city tour of Europe, with stops in Athens, Madrid, Pisa, Florence, Milan, and London. 

The Emerson Quartet’s extensive discography includes the complete string quartets of Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Bartók, Webern, and Shostakovich, as well as multi-CD sets of the major works of Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, and Dvořák. In 2018, Deutsche Grammophon issued a box of the Emerson Complete Recordings on the label. In 2020, the group released a recording of Schumann’s three string quartets for the Pentatone label. In the preceding year, the Quartet joined forces with GRAMMY®-winning pianist Evgeny Kissin to release their debut collaborative album for Deutsche Grammophon, recorded live at a sold-out Carnegie Hall concert in 2018. 

Formed in 1976 and based in New York City, the Emerson String Quartet was one of the first quartets to have its violinists alternate in the first chair position. The Quartet, which takes its name from the American poet and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson, balances busy performing careers with a commitment to teaching and serves as Quartet-in-Residence at Stony Brook University. In 2013, cellist Paul Watkins — a distinguished soloist, award-winning conductor, and devoted chamber musician — joined the original members of the Quartet to form today’s group. 

In 2016, the State University of New York awarded full-time Stony Brook faculty members Philip Setzer and Lawrence Dutton the status of Distinguished Professor and conferred the title of Honorary Distinguished Professor on part-time faculty members Eugene Drucker and Paul Watkins. The Quartet’s members also hold honorary doctorates from Middlebury College, College of Wooster, Bard College, and the University of Hartford. In 2015, the Quartet received the Richard J. Bogomolny National Service Award, Chamber Music America’s highest honor, in recognition of its significant and lasting contribution to the chamber music field. The Emerson String Quartet enthusiastically endorses Thomastik strings.