Emerson String Quartet

Eugene Drucker and Philip Setzer, violins
Lawrence Dutton, viola
Paul Watkins, cello 

The Emerson Quartet, named “America’s greatest quartet” by Time magazine, is one of the most celebrated classical music quartets of all time, maintaining its status as one of the world’s premier chamber music ensembles for more than four decades. The Quartet has made more than thirty acclaimed recordings, and has been honored with nine GRAMMYs® (including two for Best Classical Album), three Gramophone Awards, the Avery Fisher Prize, and Musical America’s “Ensemble of the Year” award. They have worked with some of today’s most esteemed composers to premiere new works, and have partnered with soloists such as Renée Fleming, Barbara Hannigan, Evgeny Kissin, Emanuel Ax, and Yefim Bronfman, to name a few.

This incomparable American ensemble will disband at the end of October 2023 after a final concert at Alice Tully Hall, forty-seven remarkable years after it was initially formed at Juilliard in 1976.  All four members of the Quartet – Eugene Drucker, Philip Setzer, Lawrence Dutton and Paul Watkins – will continue to perform and teach individually; as a group, they will continue to coach and mentor young ensembles through the Emerson String Quartet Institute at Stony Brook University, along with cellist David Finckel, who was a member of the quartet for 34 years.  The Quartet’s original members were Drucker, Setzer, violist Guillermo Figueroa, Jr. and cellist Eric Wilson. Lawrence Dutton joined the group in 1977; cellist David Finckel became a member in 1979 and was succeeded by Paul Watkins in 2013.