Zorá String Quartet, Quartet

Biography

National Chamber Music Competition and the Coleman-Barstow Prize winner at the Coleman National Chamber Music Competition in 2015. As part of their prize, they will tour the Midwest and appear at the 2016 Emilia Romagna Festival in Italy. Traveling from the U.S., Canada, and Europe, the Zorá Quartet has performed in the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, and Duke’s Hall at the Royal Academy of Music in England. The Quartetcollaboratedwith the Pulitzer-prize-winningAmericancomposerCarolineShawtoperformher works withtheNOTUS ContemporaryEnsembleinFall 2013.  In Spring2014, the Zorá Quartetwasselectedas thestringquartet-in- residence toperformandstudymanuscripts attheBeethoven-Haus in Bonn, Germany.

In the summer of 2015, the Quartet was a part of the Chamber Music Residency at the Banff Centre and the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival.  It also participatedattheCenter for AdvancedQuartetStudies oftheAspenMusic Festival inthesummerof 2014 andworked intensivelywithEarl Carlyss, the Takács Quartet,Pacifica Quartet, andtheAmerican StringQuartet. The ZoráQuartetalsoperformed in master classes for theLondonHaydnQuartet, KeithRobinson, KoichiroHarada, membersof the ClevelandQuartet,TheSilkRoadEnsemblewithYo-YoMa, andNoah Bendix-Balgley. 

The members of the Quartetaspire toeducateindividual students, serveasmentors for collegiate-level string quartetsofIndiana University,and initiateactive outreach projects in Bloomingtonto introduce newaudiences tochambermusic. They have workedwith ReimaginingOpera ForKids (ROK) and performed intheWylie HouseMuseum, Waldron Arts Center, and theArtMuseumof IUBloomingtonto reach out tothelocalcommunity.  Currently, the Zorá StringQuartetis the Graduate Quartet-in-ResidenceattheJacobsSchoolofMusicin Indiana Universityunderthe tutelageofthePacificaQuartet.

The Quartet was formed in 2013 (newly formed in 2014) in Bloomington, IN. Violinist Dechopol Kowintaweewat initially performed with cellist Zizai Ning and violinist/violist Pablo Munoz Salido while they were all pursuing their Masters of Music at IU. Violinist Seula Lee joined in 2014 at the recommendation of the Pacifica Quartet.

Zorá String Quartet members hold graduate degrees in performance and chamber music from the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University and are part of the Jacobs School of Music’s prestigious Chamber Music Performer’s Diploma from 2014-16. Some of their most influential mentors include the Pacifica Quartet, Atar Arad, Kevork Mardirossian, Eric Kim, and Grigory Kalinovsky.

The name “Zorá” was given by Professor Kevork Mardirossian and means ‘sunrise’ in Bulgarian.