Hailed by The New York Times at its Carnegie Hall debut as “invariably energetic and finely burnished… playing with earthy vigor,” the GRAMMY Award-winning CATALYST QUARTET was founded by the internationally acclaimed Sphinx Organization in 2010. The ensemble (Karla Donehew Perez, violin; Abi Fayette, violin; Paul Laraia, viola; and Karlos Rodriguez, cello) believes in the unity that can be achieved through music and imagines their projects with this in mind, reimagining and redefining the classical music experience.
The Catalyst Quartet, known for “perfect ensemble unity” (Lincoln Journal Star), has toured widely throughout the United States and abroad, including sold-out performances at The Kennedy Center and Carnegie Hall. Recent seasons have brought international engagements in Russia, South Korea, Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, and Puerto Rico. The ensemble has received invitations to perform at many important music festivals and as guest soloists with the Cincinnati Symphony, New Haven Symphony, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and the Orquesta Filarmónica de Bogotá. Catalyst Quartet has served as principal players and featured ensemble with the Sphinx Virtuosi on six national tours. The ensemble launched its New York concert series, CQ@Howl, in 2018.
Highlights of upcoming collaborations include Encuentros, featuring a newly commissioned work by innovative Cuban composer Jorge Amado Molina and other voices from across the Cuban diaspora; (Im)migration: Music of Change, a collaboration with the Imani Winds; and CQ Minute, a commissioning project of 10 miniature string quartets in commemoration of the quartet’s 10th anniversary. The Catalyst Quartet’s latest project is UNCOVERED, a multi-volume set of albums that celebrates artists who have been overlooked in classical music due to their race or gender, to be released on Azica Records. The most recent album, UNCOVERED Vol. 3, was nominated for a GRAMMY Award in 2023.
The Catalyst Quartet’s debut album, The Bach/Gould Project, features the ensemble’s own collaborative arrangement of J.S. Bach’s monumental Goldberg Variations paired with Glenn Gould’s rarely heard String Quartet Op. 1. The quartet can also be heard on Strum (Azica 2015), the solo debut album of composer Jessie Montgomery, who was a member violinist from 2012-2020; bandoneonist and composer JP Jofre’s Bandoneón y cuerdas (Progressive Sounds 2017); and Dreams and Daggers (Mack Avenue Records 2017), a 2-CD GRAMMY-winning album with jazz vocalist Cecile McLorin Salvant.
The Catalyst Quartet has served as principal faculty at the Sphinx Performance Academy, ENCORE Summer Academy, and Ascent Music Festival. Other residencies include interactive performance presentations and workshops with Native American student composers at the Grand Canyon Music Festival and the Sphinx Organization’s Overture program, which delivers access to music education in Detroit and Flint, Michigan. The ensemble’s residency in Havana, Cuba for the Cuban American Youth Orchestra in January 2019 was the first by an American string quartet since the revolution and they continue to return for additional residencies.
The Catalyst Quartet members hold degrees from The Cleveland Institute of Music, Curtis Institute of Music, The Juilliard School, and New England Conservatory and proudly endorse Pirastro strings. Learn more at www.catalystquartet.com.
