Pacifica Quartet

Recognized for its virtuosity, exuberant performance style, and often daring repertory choices, the Pacifica Quartet has a long list of achievements in its varied career, with recent highlights including complete Beethoven quartet cycles in Chicago, New York City, California, and Wisconsin, performances in Europe and Japan, and the release of a two-disc set of the complete quartets of Elliott Carter on the Naxos label, the first of which received the 2009 Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance. The quartet—violinists Simin Ganatra and Sibbi Bernhardsson, violist Masumi Per Rostad, and cellist Brandon Vamos—has received many honors, including a prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant, Grand Prize at the 1996 Coleman Chamber Music Competition, and the top prize at the 1997 Concert Artists Guild Competition, and was recently named Musical America’s 2009 Ensemble of the Year. An advocate of contemporary music, the Pacifica has commissioned and premiered as many as eight new works a year and has performed Elliott Carter’s five quartets on prestigious stages in the United States, Europe, and Japan.