Praised by The New Yorker as “a fresh and vital young
participant in what is a golden age of American string quartets,” the
Daedalus Quartet has established itself as a leader among the new
generation of string ensembles. In the nine years of its existence the
Daedalus Quartet has received plaudits from critics and listeners alike
for the security, technical finish, interpretive unity, and sheer gusto
of its performances – and this in cannily selected repertoire ranging
from the classicism of Haydn to the complexities of Elliott Carter.
“Polished and vigorous” (The New York Times); “a young quartet whose
moment has arrived” (The New York Sun); “jet-propelled rockets of
blistering virtuosity …the music rang gloriously” (The Washington Post)
-- these are only a few of the accolades garnered by the Daedalus
Quartet in recent seasons.
On October 14, 2008, senior critic Anthony Tommasini of The New York
Times wrote:
It is hard to imagine a more inviting place to hear a Haydn string quartet than Philosophy Hall at Columbia University, especially at noontime with your lunch on your lap. On Monday the excellent Daedalus Quartet, in residence at Columbia, opened the second season of free Lunchtime Concerts at the university by playing Haydn’s Quartet in C (Op. 20, No. 2), one of the six “Sun” Quartets from that opus. The performance was insightful and vibrant, and the setting ideally intimate. Hearing such an excellent, up-close performance made this Haydn piece seem even more monumental. And what a splendid way to spend your lunch hour.
In 2007 critic Steve Smith of The New York Times took particular notice of the refined musicality of Daedalus’s performance of Debussy’s String Quartet at Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center:The Daedalus players – the sibling violinists Kyu-Young Kim and Min-Young Kim, the violist Jessica Thompson and the cellist Raman Ramakrishnan – underscored the work’s formal elegance with impeccable balance and articulation, while also emphasizing its elusive passion and wit through imaginative management of phrasing and dynamics. (January 19, 2007)
More recently, the Quartet received high praise from Peter Dobrin of The Philadelphia Inquirer in a review of a Daedalus performance for The Philadelphia Chamber Music Society in January 2009:In Haydn’s String Quartet in F Major, Opus 77, No. 2, Hob. III:82, each member bent the tempos of short, interloping figures so subtly you could only marvel at the finesse. But it was Stravinsky’s Three Pieces for String Quartet from 1914 that was the best marriage between ensemble and composer … Some pizzicati popped like balloons, other like gentle soap bubbles. But with a haiku-like economy and density of ideas, you never had the suspicion that impressive technique was dictating the music itself. (January 19, 2009)
During the 2009-10 season the Daedalus Quartet is heard at Woodstock, NY (Maverick Concerts); New York’s Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall; Brooklyn’s Bargemusic; Eureka Chamber Music Series, CA; Cleveland Chamber Music Society; University of Pennsylvania, PA; Tuscaloosa, AL; Wolf Trap, Vienna, VA (featuring the world premiere of Lawrence Dillon’s String Quartet No. 4); Winston-Salem, NC; Storioni Music Festival, Eindhoven, Holland (with pianist Peter Frankl); University of Buffalo, NY; the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, NY; Drew University, Madison, NJ (with pianist Gilbert Kalish); Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY; Haverford College, Haverford, PA; Coastal Concerts, Lewes, DE; Friends of Chamber Music, Stockton, CA; Philharmonic Society of Orange County, Irvine, CA; Mainly Mozart Festival, San Diego, CA (with David Shifrin, clarinet); Purchase College Performing Arts Center, Purchase, NY; Chicago Chamber Music Society, Chicago, IL; Islip Arts Council, Brentwood, NY; Howland Chamber Music Circle, Beacon, NY (with Benjamin Hochman, piano), and the MIT Guest Artist Series, Cambridge, MA.