Carnegie Hall

The Miró Quartet is one of America’s most celebrated and dedicated string quartets, having been labeled by The New Yorker as “furiously committed” and noted by Cleveland’s The Plain Dealer for its “exceptional tonal focus and interpretive intensity.” Based in Austin, Texas, and thriving on the area’s storied music scene, the Miró takes pride in finding new ways to communicate with audiences of all backgrounds while cultivating the longstanding tradition of chamber music.

In the 2021–2022 season, the Miró partnered with renowned soprano Karen Slack in a new program that explored the works of Florence Price and Margaret Bonds. In 2020, the quartet celebrated its 25th anniversary by performing a wide range of repertoire that pays homage to the legacy of the string quartet and looks to the future of chamber music and string quartet playing in the US. In summer 2020, in honor of the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth, the quartet broadcast live performances of the composer’s complete string quartets from venues throughout Austin for the Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival.

In 2019, the Miró released a box set of Beethoven’s complete string quartets on Pentatone. The ensemble began this recording project in 2005 with the release of the Op. 18 quartets, and the finished cycle represents not only Beethoven’s journey as a composer, but a 14-year journey for the quartet.

Additional highlights of recent seasons include a sold-out return to Carnegie Hall, performances for the New York Philharmonic with Gabriel Kahane, appearances with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and performances at The Phillips Collection, Chamber Music Monterey Bay, Green Music Center, and Emerald City Music in Seattle. The quartet also recently debuted in Korea and Singapore, and at the Hong Kong International Chamber Music Festival. A favorite of summer chamber music festivals, the Miró Quartet has recently performed at La Jolla Music Society’s SummerFest, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, OK Mozart, and Music@Menlo.

Formed in 1995, the Miró Quartet was awarded first prize at the Banff International String Quartet Competition and the Naumburg Chamber Music Competition. In 2005, the quartet became the first ensemble to be awarded an Avery Fisher Career Grant. Deeply committed to music education, the Miró has served as the quartet in residence at the University of Texas at Austin since 2003.

Having released many celebrated recordings, the Miró Quartet recently produced an Emmy Award–winning multimedia project titled Transcendence. A work with visual and audio elements, Transcendence encompasses philanthropy and documentary filmmaking, and is centered around a performance of Schubert’s Quartet in G Major on rare Stradivarius instruments. The quartet records independently and makes its music available on a global scale through all major streaming platforms.

The Miró Quartet took its name and its inspiration from the Spanish artist Joan Miró, whose Surrealist works—with subject matter drawn from the realm of memory, dreams, and imaginative fantasy—are some of the most groundbreaking, influential, and admired of the 20th century.