Collaborations

For the Fry Street Quartet, collaboration is a practice of reciprocity—an act of listening across disciplines, identities, and ecosystems. These projects grow from long-term relationships with artists, thinkers, and communities, where music becomes a shared language for exploring the deepest questions of our time.

Rather than perform at the edge of science, social issues, or identity, the Fry Street Quartet seeks to perform within them—inhabiting the tensions, the beauty, and the complexity of our entangled world.

The Crossroads Project

A pioneering collaboration with physicist Dr. Robert Davies, The Crossroads Project blended original music, science communication, and visual media to explore the realities of global sustainability. Featuring scores by Laura Kaminsky and Libby Larsen, and imagery by painter Rebecca Allan and photographer Garth Lenz, the project toured nationally and was featured in the quartet’s album The Crossroads Project and accompanying film Rising Tide. Together, these works invited audiences to move from understanding to action.

Lek: Listening at the Edge

In collaboration with composer Nicolás Lell Benavides, this recent commission braids string quartet with field recordings of the imperiled sage grouse. Lek will be featured in a new documentary film—currently in production—that explores the music, landscape, and communities surrounding one of the American West’s most iconic and endangered species.

NOVA Chamber Music Series

As Quartet-in-Residence and former Music Directors of Salt Lake City’s NOVA Chamber Music Series, the FSQ has helped shape seasons of adventurous programming. NOVA has become a laboratory for connection—between musicians and audience, tradition and innovation, regional and global voices.

Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music

The FSQ enjoys an ongoing relationship with composers from the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music, particularly through Frank’s Composing Earth initiative. These collaborations support new commissions, educational partnerships, and seasonal residencies that deepen the quartet’s engagement with climate-conscious creativity.

As One

Equally at home exploring the environmental and the personal, the Fry Street Quartet also premiered As One, Kaminsky’s chamber opera with film, which tells the story of a transgender individual. The New York Times wrote, "As One forces you to think, simultaneously challenging preconceptions and inspiring empathy … [with] winning humor and a satisfying emotional arc.” The New York Classical Review raved, "As One is everything that we hope for in contemporary opera: topical, poignant, daring, and beautifully written."

Since its premiere at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 2014, As One has become the most produced new opera in North America.  The FSQ is pleased to have an ongoing relationship with this beautiful work, so relevant to the social discourse of our time.