Ciompi Quartet

Since its founding in 1965 by the renowned Italian violinist Giorgio Ciompi, the Ciompi Quartet of Duke University has delighted audiences and impressed critics around the world. In a career that spans five continents and includes many hundreds of concerts, the Ciompi Quartet has developed a reputation for performances of real intelligence and musical sophistication, with a warm, unified sound that allows each player’s individual voice to emerge.

In recent years, the Ciompi Quartet has performed across the U.S. from Washington State to California, Texas, New York, Washington DC and New England, and abroad from China and Taiwan to France, Italy, Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, Serbia and Albania. In June 2024 the Quartet performed in Vienna at a celebration of that composer’s 150^th anniversary sponsored by the Arnold Schoenberg Center. The Quartet has performed at the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival in Detroit, North Carolina’s Eastern Music Festival and Highlands Chamber Music Festival, and at Monadnock Music in New Hampshire.

The Ciompi Quartet’s commitment to creative programming often mixes the old and the brand new in exciting ways. Most recently, the quartet engaged composers Alan Chan and Andrew Waggoner to write new works for string quartet and pipa, in a collaboration with pipa player Min Xiao-Fen called “An American in Shanghai: Forgotten Stories.”

Its extensive catalog of commissions includes many that the group continues to perform on tour. Close ties to composers such as Paul Schoenfield, Stephen Jaffe, Scott Lindroth, and Melinda Wagner have produced important contributions to the repertoire; the quartet recently premiered Stephen Jaffe’s Third String Quartet and two new quintets by Lindroth: “Schley Road” for quartet and saxophone, and his Cello Quintet. A recording of recent commissions will appear on the New Focus label in 2025. Other recent recordings are on Toccata Classics (a quartet by 19th century violin virtuoso Heinrich Ernst), and Naxos, which released “Journey to the West” by Chiayu Hsu; also on Naxos online is a recording of the quartets of Paul Schoenfield, including the popular “Tales from Chelm.” Numerous other discs are on the CRI, Arabesque, Albany, Gasparo, and Sheffield Lab labels.

All the Ciompi Quartet members are Professors at Duke, where they lead the string studios and chamber music program and perform across campus in traditional and non-traditional venues.

The Ciompi Quartet Portfolio Project began in the summer of 2020 as a way for the Quartet to engage with composers in Duke Music’s graduate program during the COVID-19 pandemic, when live performances were curtailed and composers and performers needed creative outlets for their music. Portfolio Project 2020 was presented by Duke Music’s Best of Biddle virtual series, with the video receiving hundreds of views since its premiere.

The success of the initial project inspired the Ciompi Quartet to continue the Portfolio Project in the summers of 2021 and 2022. Read more about the composers and hear recorded performances at the links below.