Winner of the Alice Coleman Grand Prize at the 60th annual Coleman Chamber Ensemble Competition in 2006 and one of ten quartets chosen to compete in the semi-finals of the 9th Banff International String Quartet Competition, the internationally acclaimed Attacca Quartet is well on its way to becoming one of America's premier young performing ensembles.

 

Comprised of violinists Amy Schroeder and Keiko Tokunaga, violist Gillian Gallagher, and cellist Andrew Yee, the Attacca Quartet was formed at the Juilliard School in 2003 and gave its debut recital in 2007 as part of the Artists International Winners Series in Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall.

 

One of three string quartets chosen worldwide to participate in the Pacific Music Festival's 2006 String Quartet Course in Sapporo, Japan, the Attacca Quartet also performed in Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall as a part of the Juilliard Young Artists and Their Mentors series, sharing a program with the Juilliard String Quartet. The Attacca Quartet represented Juilliard in the Guarneri String Quartet's 40th Anniversary master class and the John F. Kennedy Center  Conservatory Project concert series, and has also distinguished itself in seminars and master classes with members of the Juilliard, Emerson, Vermeer, Miro, Tokyo, and St. Lawrence string quartets.

 

The resident quartet at the 2005 Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy, and participants in the International Program for advanced string quartets in the 2005 Music@Menlo festival, the Quartet has collaborated with pianist Jerome Lowenthal, pianist Claude Frank, violinist Arnold Steinhardt and the Tokyo String Quartet, and has also participated in the Emerson String Quartet's International String Quartet Seminar at Stonybrook University. The quartet has also engaged in extensive educational and community outreach projects, serving as guest artists and teaching fellows at the 2006 Animato Summer Music Camp at Florida International University in Miami, Florida.

 

The Attacca Quartet devoted a week in 2006 to outreach concerts for all ages in Hickory, North Carolina in a partnership with the Western Piedmont Symphony. The quartet spent similar weeks  as featured ensemble with the Amherst Symphony Orchestra in Buffalo, NY, and the Hilton Head Symhony Orchestra's Chamber Music Festival in South Carolina.

 

The Attacca Quartet is currently the resident string quartet at Hunter College in Manhattan, and will be  teaching alongside the Tokyo String Quartet at the 2008 Port Townsend Chamber Music Festival in Port Townsend, Washington this summer. The members of the Attacca Quartet graduated in May, 2008 with both bachelor's and master's degrees from the Juilliard School.  Their collaboration with flutist Don Bailey began in 2005, in Spoleto, Italy.  Visit Attacca's website at http://attaccaquartet.com.