The Balourdet Quartet is acclaimed for their vibrant energy and masterful blend of technical precision and emotional depth that brings a fresh perspective to both beloved classics and modern compositions. Its unique closeness and willingness to take creative risks earned it the 2024 Avery Fisher Career Grant, as well as Chamber Music America’s 2024 Cleveland Quartet Award. With more than 70 concerts per season, recent highlights include the Balourdet’s debuts at Carnegie and Wigmore Halls, and new string quartets by composers Karim Al-Zand, Paul Novak, and Nicky Sohn through grants from Chamber Music America (2021) and the Barlow Foundation (2023). They have recently been named the first ever Quartet-in-Residence at the Seattle Chamber Music Society and have recently completed residencies at Indiana University and the New England Conservatory’s Professional String Quartet Program.

Highlights of the 2025-26 season include performances at Carnegie Hall, the Freer Gallery at the Smithsonian, Boston’s Celebrity Series in Jordan Hall, and Chamber Music Houston. Recently, they have performed at the Kennedy Center, Buffalo Chamber Music, the Chamber Music Society of Detroit, and La Jolla Music Society and Rockport Music. Collaborations include violinist James Ehnes, pianists Marc-André Hamelin and Simone Dinnerstein, cellists Zuill Bailey and Astrid Schween, violist Jordan Bak, and the Dover, Pacifica, and Ying Quartets. They continue their position as String Quartet in Residence with the Chamber Orchestra of the Triangle in North Carolina where they curate the Up Close Chamber Music Series, serve as principals in the orchestra, and engage with the larger community of the Triangle region. Most recently, the Balourdet received the Chamber Music Award from the National Federation of Music Clubs for the 25-26 season and are winners of the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music’s 2025 Innovation Competition for their educational initiative Expedition Strings.

Committed to sharing their musical values with the next generation, the quartet has served regularly as faculty at the Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival, JDR Summer Music Academy, Berkshire Summer Music, and Opus Chamber Music. They have also given masterclasses and coachings at Northwestern University, University of Michigan, Rice University, Emory University, New England Conservatory Preparatory Department, Fischoff Chamber Music Academy, Upper Valley Chamber Music, and Wright State University.

The Balourdet journey began in 2018 in the mountains of New Mexico at the Taos School of Music, where violinists Justin DeFilippis, Angela Bae, and cellist Russell Houston first bonded as friends over long evenings of chamber music, luxurious Peppermint Schnapps and extravagant meals created by chef extraordinaire Antoine Balourdet, a renaissance man with an exceptional love of life and music. It was the friendships, a shared passion for music and food, and gratitude for the role the festival played in the formation of the quartet, that inspired the members to name the ensemble in Chef Balourdet’s honor.

Soon thereafter, in the heat of a waning Texas summer, Justin, Angela, and Russell joined with violist Benjamin Zannoni at Rice University, and the Balourdet Quartet was formed. Inspired by their love for the repertoire and the excitement of having found each other, the four friends found themselves playing quartets late into the night for fun. After having been together for only one year at Rice University, and a summer at the Aspen Music Festival, they took second prize at the Nielsen International String Quartet Competition, and were selected as the only quartet admitted to Boston’s historic New England Conservatory Professional String Quartet Program under the tutelage of Cleveland Quartet cellist Paul Katz.

In 2021, the Quartet won the Grand Prize at New York’s Concert Artists Guild Competition, which included joint management by Concert Artists Guild in the U.S., and Young Classical Artist’s Trust (YCAT) in the UK and Europe. In addition, the Balourdet has been prizewinners in Canada’s Banff International String Quartet Competition, the International Premio Paolo Borciani Competition in Italy, Gold Medal winners at the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, and Gold Medal and Audience Prizewinners at the Yellow Springs Competition.

Recent prizewinners at the 2025 Bordeaux and Wigmore Hall International Quartet Competitions, the Terra String Quartet is a vibrant young international ensemble based in New York City. They are composed of graduates of The Juilliard School, The New England Conservatory, Harvard University, and the Curtis Institute of Music. Known for their sincere storytelling, commitment to artistic excellence, and versatile approach to repertoire, TSQ strives to foster conversation and genuine human connection through their performances and pedagogy.

TSQ is the 2024-25 fellowship Ensemble-in-Residence at the Yale School of Music, where they coach undergraduate chamber group ensembles, as well the 2024–25 Ernst Stiefel String Quartet-in-Residence at the Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts. They have performed at numerous festivals and venues across the world, with recent concerts at Capital Region Classical, Rockport Music, Guarneri Hall, Chamber Music Raleigh, Randolph College, and the Emilia-Romagna Festival in Italy. TSQ is invested in education and community work, having been the ‘23-24 Project Music Heals Us Arts Leadership Ensemble, and they were also chosen as the inaugural Four Seasons Chamber Music Festival’s Professional Fellowship Quartet at East Carolina University. Their mentors and coaches include the members of the Brentano Quartet, Ara Gregorian, Hye-Jin Kim, and Marcy Rosen.

TSQ has won top prizes at the 2025 Bordeaux Quartet Competition, the 2025 Wigmore Hall Quartet Competition, the 2023 Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition, the 2023 Osaka International Chamber Music Competition, and the 2022 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. They were also awarded the Christine and David Anderson Career Development Prize at the 2022 Banff International String Quartet Competition. In their spare time, they enjoy playing Mahjong and learning about instruments and bows.

Clarinetist Todd Palmer has appeared as soloist, recitalist, chamber music collaborator, educator, arranger, and presenter in a variety of musical endeavors around the world. A three time Grammy nominated artist, he has appeared as soloist with the Atlanta, Houston, BBC Scotland orchestras; St. Paul, New York, Cincinnati, Montréal, and Metamorphosen chamber orchestras, as well as many others. He’s collaborated with many of the worlds finest string ensembles such as the St. Lawrence, Brentano, Borromeo, Pacifica, Daedalus and Ying quartets; and has also shared the stage with sopranos Kathleen Battle, Renée Fleming, Elizabeth Futral, Heidi Grant Murphy and Dawn Upshaw, and many other notable instrumentalists. He has championed Osvaldo Golijov’s Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind  around the world and commissioned the theatre work  Orpheus and Euridice  by  Ricky Ian Gordon which was presented  by  Great Performers at Lincoln Center in 2005 .  He was a winner of the Young Concert Artist International Auditions, and has  participated in numerous music festivals in the US and abroad including 18 years at Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston, SC, 5 years at the Marlboro Festival and the Tanglewood Institute, where he was awarded the Leonard Bernstein Fellowship.  He has also held principle clarinet positions in the Minnesota Orchestra, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Orchestra of St. Lukes, the Gotham Chamber Opera and the Grand Teton Festival.  In 2008 he premiered  David Bruce’s Gumboots, a Carnegie Hall commission that was written especially for him and the St. Lawrence Quartet, and for two years appeared in Lincoln Center’s revival of South Pacific.Recently he appeared as soloist in Robert Lepage’s staging of Stravinsky’s The Nightingale and Other  Fables at BAM — dressed as a Cossack and performed the Mozart clarinet concerto as a part of Great Performers at Lincoln Center’s What Makes It Great series.

Aaron Wilk is a physician-scientist and pianist specializing in the chamber repertoire of the early 20^th century. In 2015, Wilk won 1st prize at the Performing Arts Scholarship Foundation in Santa Barbara, and in 2018 he won the Graduate Prize in Music from Stanford University. He completed his undergraduate education in Biology, Chemistry, and Music at Westmont College, where he studied piano with Steve Hodson. His teachers have also included Constantine Finehouse, Robert Roux, and David Genova. Wilk completed his MD and PhD at Stanford University, where he studied piano with Thomas Schultz. He is currently completing his residency training in pathology at Stanford Health Care.