Praised as “a triumph of ensemble playing” by The New York Times and celebrated for a “blend of technical precision and scorching spontaneity” (The Strad), the Fry Street Quartet is a dynamic ensemble at the forefront of 21st-century chamber music. Performing works from the classical canon alongside bold new compositions, the FSQ is equally at home with Beethoven and Bartók as with Aida Shirazi, Gabriela Lena Frank, or Clarice Assad. Winners of the Grand Prize at the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, the quartet has captivated audiences from Carnegie Hall to London, Sarajevo, Jerusalem, and across the United States.

The Fry Street Quartet’s musical voice is deeply informed by a commitment to place, ecological listening, and long-form artistic inquiry. Their pioneering performance project Rising Tide: The Crossroads Project—a transdisciplinary collaboration with physicist Dr. Robert Davies—was performed over 60 times across the U.S. and internationally. This fusion of science, music, and storytelling has been featured by The New York Times, NPR’s All Things Considered, Yale Climate Connections, and Reuters. The quartet’s multi-year commitment to sustainability continues through a vibrant commissioning portfolio, featuring composers whose work speaks to the ecological and cultural moment.

The 2025–2026 season includes the world premiere of Living Memory | Sundarbans, a new work by composer and saxophonist Aakash Mittal; the video release of Gabriela Lena Frank’s A Psalm of Disquiet; and a new documentary. In Fall 2025, the quartet debuts LEK: Listening at the Edge of Erasure, exploring both the wonder and the fragility of the endangered sage grouse through the ensemble’s music-making at the intersection of art, science, and place. In Spring 2026, the FSQ is featured performing original music by Laura Kaminsky in an episode about poet May Swensen on the PBS series Poetry in America.

The Fry Street Quartet’s recent and upcoming commissions include Laura Kaminsky’s Arboreal, Aida Shirazi’s They Need to Remember for treble voice and quartet, Akshaya Tucker’s Night Fire for tenor and quartet, Hitomi Oba’s Landing Steps, Grounded Landings, and Nicolás Lell Benavides’ LEK, a work for string quartet and electronics incorporating the recorded mating calls of sage grouse and sharp-tailed grouse. Earlier commissions include Rising Tide by Kaminsky and Emergence by Libby Larsen—both composed for The Crossroads Project—as well as Clarice Assad’s Canções da América, released on video in 2023 by Chicago’s Guarneri Hall.

Known for programming that pairs iconic repertoire with exploratory new works, the FSQ has performed complete cycles of Bartók’s quartets for both the NOVA Chamber Music Series and Utah State University’s Caine College of the Arts. In 2026–2027, the quartet will present all five of Beethoven’s late quartets in a season-long cycle. They have premiered and performed Laura Kaminsky’s acclaimed opera As One with Sasha Cooke and Kelly Markgraf at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, as well as with Hawaii Opera Theatre, Lyric Opera of Kansas City, and Chautauqua Opera.

The Fry Street Quartet has performed at prestigious venues and series such as Carnegie Hall, The New School, and Rockefeller University in New York; Guarneri Hall and the Jewel Box Series in Chicago; Chamber Music Columbus; the Kravis Center in West Palm Beach; The Theosophical Society in London; and international halls in Austria and China. They continue to serve as Artistic Partners and Quartet-in-Residence for Salt Lake City’s NOVA series.

Their discography includes The Crossroads Project (Navona Records), As One (Albany Records), and Canções da América (Guarneri Hall). Upcoming releases include A Psalm of Disquiet, LEK, and Arboreal.

The FSQ performs on a rare collection of fine Italian instruments on loan from a private foundation, including violins by J.B. Guadagnini and Pietro Giacomo Rogeri, a viola by Giovanni Battista Rogeri, and a cello by Andrea Guarneri.

As Quartet-in-Residence at Utah State University’s Caine School of the Arts, where they hold the Dan C. and Manon Caine Russell Endowed String Quartet Residency, the Fry Street Quartet continues to cultivate deep roots—musical, ecological, and communal—in the place they call home.