ENSEMBLE · STRING QUARTET
Attacca Quartet
2x Grammy
Award-winning ensemble Platoon
Exclusive Recording Artist Dedicatees
New works by Adams, Shaw, Lang, Ortiz & more ABOUT
The two-time Grammy Award-winning Attacca Quartet is recognized as one of the most versatile and innovative ensembles of the moment, a true quartet for modern times. Moving seamlessly through traditional classical repertoire, electronica, video game music, and contemporary collaborations, Attacca continually expands the possibilities of the string quartet.
During the 2026–27 season, the Attacca Quartet serves as Ensemble in Residence at Cal Performances. The residency includes two concerts at Hertz Hall: one with longtime collaborator Caroline Shaw and another celebrating John Adams’ 80th birthday, featuring the Bay Area premiere of Adams’ new Iron Jig, a Cal Performances co-commission. The season also brings appearances at the University of Chicago, Library of Congress, Calgary Pro Musica, and Carnegie Hall, as well as major European appearances at Ruhrtriennale, the Barbican, Triennale Milano, Muziekgebouw, and Teatro Grande.
Attacca is also reimagining the concert experience through the Attacca Sound Bath, an immersive performance centered on deep listening. In July 2026, the quartet presented a sold-out Sound Bath for 3,000 people at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, with its sound distributed throughout the garden to create an expansive listening experience. The project is now being developed for a range of indoor and outdoor settings.
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Passionate advocates of contemporary repertoire, the quartet is dedicated to presenting and recording new works. In 2025, Attacca began a new recording partnership with Platoon, launching with Maurice Ravel’s String Quartet in F major, issued during the 150th anniversary year of the composer’s birth. The partnership continues with a forthcoming album featuring the music of composer and cellist Paul Wiancko. In 2026, the quartet also joined vocalist Theo Bleckmann for David Lang’s note to a friend, released on Cantaloupe Music.
Attacca’s acclaimed collaborations with Caroline Shaw have earned two Grammy Awards for Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance, for Orange in 2020 and Evergreen in 2023. Their wide-ranging discography also includes Real Life, featuring collaborations with artists from the electronic music world, and Of All Joys, bringing music of the Renaissance into conversation with works by Philip Glass and Arvo Pärt.
The Attacca Quartet performs at leading venues and festivals around the world, with appearances including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Ojai Music Festival, Big Ears Festival, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Wigmore Hall and Kings Place in London, Gothenburg Konserthuset, and the String Quartet Biennale Amsterdam.
Beyond the traditional concert stage, Attacca has collaborated with some of today’s most distinctive artists across genres. The quartet collaborated with Billie Eilish and FINNEAS on Eilish’s HIT ME HARD AND SOFT and performed with them on Saturday Night Live. They are also featured on Patrick Watson’s “A Mermaid in Lisbon” and have performed with him at Central Park’s SummerStage and Le Poisson Rouge. Attacca can also be heard on Caroline Shaw’s score for Ken Burns’ Leonardo da Vinci, Jay Wadley’s score for We Grown Now, and FINNEAS’ score for Alfonso Cuarón’s Apple TV+ series Disclaimer.
Formed at the Juilliard School by Amy Schroeder and Andrew Yee in 2003, the Attacca Quartet has maintained a strong commitment to education and community engagement, working with institutions including the Lincoln Center Institute, the University of Texas, the Juilliard School, the Boston University Tanglewood Institute, and Bravo! Vail. Expert programmers and communicators, they bring established repertoire into vibrant conversation with the music of living composers.
PRESS & REVIEWS
What the critics say
“Their playing is exuberant, funky and more exactingly nuanced.”
— The New York Times
“They may be a relatively young ensemble, but already they come very close to epitomizing the string quartet ideal: four strikingly individual players with the ability to speak eloquently in one voice.”
— The Washington Post
“We're living in a golden age of string quartets…It's hard to disagree when you hear the vibrant young players in New York's Attacca Quartet.”
— NPR
VIDEOS
Videos
2026-27
Programs & Repertoire
Program One
- Haydn Op. 50, No. 5 'The Dream'
- David Lang Daisy
- Intermission
- Nocturne Suitearr. Attacca, Poulenc & Chopin
- Bartók String Quartet No. 4 (or Britten: String Quartet No. 2)
Program Two
- Paul Wiancko Benkei's Standing Death
- Michael Ippolito Smoke Rings
- Gabriel Kahane Klee
- Intermission
- Debussy String Quartet in G minor, Op. 10
Program Three
- Schubert String Quartet No. 14 'Death and the Maiden'
- Intermission
- Gabriela Ortiz Altar de Muertos
Collaborations
Attacca Quartet + Caroline Shaw
An evening of Shaw's quartets and songs.
Attacca Quartet + Gabriel Kahane
Kahane's string quartet plus a set of his original songs in collaboration.
Program One
Weird Grooves
Weird Grooves anchors the Attacca Quartet’s 25th anniversary season. The first half plays like a dance party in disguise: a run of grooves from Couperin to Radiohead, each member of the quartet contributing an arrangement, so all four appear as both performers and composers. It builds to Iron Jig, a single-movement work written for the ensemble by John Adams and premiered in June 2026, before the second half turns to a pillar of late Beethoven. It’s 25 years of boundary-pushing, distilled into a single evening.
- The Playlist
- Couperin Unmeasured Preludearr. Gabriel Kahane
- Tigran Hamasyan Etude No. 1arr. Domenic SalerniViolin
- Michael Ippolito Smoke Rings
- Radiohead Pyramid Songarr. Amy SchroederViolin
- Caroline Shaw Sarabande from Partita for 8 Voicesarr. Andrew YeeCello
- Shye Ben Tzur / Jonny Greenwood / Rajasthan Express Jununarr. Nathan SchramViola
- John Adams Iron Jig
- Intermission
- Beethoven String Quartet No. 12 in E-flat major, Op. 127
Also available without intermission, closing with the Grosse Fuge, Op. 133.
Program Two
- Beethoven String Quartet No. 1 in F major, Op. 18, No. 1
- Paul Wiancko Benkei's Standing Death
- Intermission
- Gabriela Ortiz Altar de Muertos
Program Three
Choose Your Own All-Beethoven
- Beethoven String Quartet No. 1 in F major, Op. 18, No. 1
- Beethoven String Quartet No. 2 in G major, Op. 18, No. 2
- Beethoven String Quartet No. 3 in D major, Op. 18, No. 3
- Beethoven String Quartet No. 7 in F major, Op. 59, No. 1, "Razumovsky"
- Beethoven String Quartet in C major, Op. 59, No. 3, "Razumovsky"
- Beethoven String Quartet No. 10 in E-flat major, Op. 74, "Harp"
- Beethoven String Quartet No. 12 in E-flat major, Op. 127
- Beethoven String Quartet No. 14 in C-sharp minor, Op. 131
- Beethoven The Grosse Fuge, Op. 133
A custom program drawn from these available works.
Collaborations
Attacca Quartet + Caroline Shaw
An evening of Shaw's quartets and songs. Exact program to be confirmed.
Attacca Quartet + Gabriel Kahane
Attacca performs Gabriel Kahane's string quartet and collaborates with him on a series of his original songs. Exact program to be confirmed.
On Stage
Featured Projects
Attacca Quartet & Caroline Shaw
String Quartet
The Attacca Quartet presents a special collaboration with composer and vocalist Caroline Shaw, whose albums with the quartet — Orange and Evergreen — have each won the Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance. Together they bring Shaw's distinctive, genre-crossing voice to the concert stage.
Attacca Sound Bath
String Quartet
On a Monday night in July 2026, the Attacca Quartet presented a sold-out sound bath on the Cherry Esplanade at Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Three thousand people brought mats and towels and spent seventy-five minutes lying in the grass while the music arrived from speakers distributed throughout the garden. There was no fixed program and no guide — the Quartet let the music unfold in response to the moment. The invitation is simply to lie down and listen deeply. It needs a garden, museum, campus, concert hall or open field, and an audience willing to settle in. Two hundred people in an auditorium follows the same artistic principle as three thousand in a field.
Gabriel Kahane & Attacca Quartet
Voice and String Quartet
Singer-songwriter and composer Gabriel Kahane joins the Attacca Quartet for a collaborative program that brings together Kahane's genre-spanning songwriting and the quartet's chamber artistry — a meeting of two deeply soulful musical voices.
Note to a Friend
String Quartet
A 60-minute chamber opera by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer David Lang, commissioned by the Japan Society and performed by the Attacca Quartet with vocalist Theo Bleckmann. The monodrama reimagines three texts by the Japanese novelist Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, addressing themes of death, love, family, and loss. The world premiere was directed by Yoshi Oida, a longtime member of Peter Brook's theater company, as part of the PROTOTYPE Festival 2023.