Grammy-Winning Catalyst Quartet Signs with Arts Management Group

The GRAMMY Award-winning Catalyst Quartet, founded in 2010 by the Sphinx Organization, has signed new representation with Arts Management Group (AMG) in North, Central, and South America. Quartet members Karla Donehew Perez and Abi Fayette(violins), Paul Laraia (viola), and Karlos Rodriguez (cello) are graduates of The Juilliard School, Cleveland Institute of Music, Curtis Institute of Music, and the New England Conservatory.

Since their founding, the Catalyst Quartet has seen a steady rise to prominence in the classical music world, with regular touring schedules across the United States, including an unprecedented second season as Artist-in-Residence at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and sold-out performances at The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., Harris Theater in Chicago, the New World Center in Miami, and Carnegie Hall in New York City. The group has also held the Ensemble-in-Residence position at Chamber Music Northwest in Portland, Oregon. On top of these achievements, the group also won a GRAMMY Award in 2018 for their album, Dreams and Daggers.

Catalyst Quartet is internationally known for its UNCOVERED Project, an annual series of albums on Azica Records highlighting works from African-American composers. The project received widespread acclaim from critics, who call UNCOVERED, “one of the most worthwhile recording projects around,” (The New York Times) with “desirable finds” (Financial Times) from the composers they seek to draw attention to, including Florence Price, Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson, George Walker, and William Grant Still. Each yearly volume – often with collaborations with brilliant artists such as Anthony McGill, Stewart Goodyear, and Michelle Cann – brings to light pieces from composers across eras of classical music, providing sound recordings of compositions not frequently performed in modern concert halls. Learn more about UNCOVERED.

More About Catalyst Quartet
The Grammy Award-winning Catalyst Quartet believes in the unity that can be achieved through music and imagines their programs and projects with this in mind, redefining and reimagining the classical music experience. The Catalyst Quartet is Ensemble-in-Residence at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City in the 2023-2024 season.

The quartet has appeared as soloists with the Cincinnati Symphony, New Haven Symphony, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and the Orquesta Filarmónica de Bogotá, and has served as principal players and featured ensemble with the Sphinx Virtuosi on six national tours. Recent seasons have brought international engagements in Russia, South Korea, South Africa, the United Kingdom, Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, and Puerto Rico, and expanded tours throughout the U.S. 

The Catalyst Quartet’s recordings span the ensemble’s scope of interests and artistry. Its debut album, The Bach/Gould Project, features the quartet’s own collaborative arrangement of J.S. Bach’s monumental Goldberg Variations paired with Glenn Gould’s rarely heard String Quartet Op. 1. The ensemble performed Strum (Azica 2015), the solo debut album of composer Jessie Montgomery, who was a member violinist from 2012-2020; Bandoneón y cuerdas(Progressive Sounds 2017), music for string quartet and bandoneon by JP Jofre; and Dreams and Daggers (Mack Ave. Records 2017), a GRAMMY-winning album with Cecile McLorin Salvant. 

The Catalyst Quartet proudly endorses Pirastro strings. Learn more at www.catalystquartet.com

Photo Credit: Ricardo Quinones