Catalyst Quartet

EVENT SPONSORS
- Season Sponsor: Available
- Series Sponsor: Available
- Concert Sponsor: Available
- Artist Sponsor: Available
- Lecture Series Sponsor: SINFONIA SALT LAKE
- Garden Sponsor: CACTUS & TROPICALS
- Post-Concert Reception Sponsor: DÉLICE BAKERY & CAFÉ
- Print Sponsor: SUN PRINT SOLUTIONS

The Grammy-nominated CATALYST QUARTET continues our 61st season on Tuesday, December 1, 2026, at Libby Gardner Concert Hall on the University of Utah campus. Founded by the Sphinx Organization in 2010 and hailed by The New York Times at its Carnegie Hall debut as "invariably energetic and finely burnished...playing with earthy vigor," the Catalyst Quartet is celebrated for its UNCOVERED recording series, a multi-volume project on Azica Records championing overlooked composers of color.

Estimated duration: 1 hour and 45 minutes

Program (timings approximate):
- John Adams – Fellow Traveler — 5 min
- Max Richter – On the Nature of Daylight — 6 min
- Dmitri Shostakovich – String Quartet No. 8 in C minor, Op. 110 — 22 min
- Intermission — 15 min
- Bernard Herrmann – Echoes for String Quartet — 19 min
- Erich Wolfgang Korngold – String Quartet No. 2 in E-flat major, Op. 26 — 23 min

All timings are approximate. Program and artists subject to change.

First time?
WE’RE SO EXCITED YOU’RE HERE!
Whether you’re a seasoned chamber music lover or brand new to classical music concerts, we are thrilled you’re considering spending an evening with the Chamber Music Society. Consider attending a free Pre-Concert Talk at 6:30 p.m. before the performance. If you have any additional questions, don’t hesitate to contact us. We hope to see you soon!

Featured Performers
- Catalyst Quartet
- Abi Fayette, violin
- Karla Donehew Perez, violin
- Paul Laraia, viola
- Karlos Rodriguez, cello

Hailed by The New York Times at its Carnegie Hall debut as “invariably energetic and finely burnished… playing with earthy vigor,” the Grammy Award-winning Catalyst Quartet was founded by the Sphinx Organization in 2010. The ensemble (Karla Donehew Perez, violin; Abi Fayette, violin; Paul Laraia, viola; and Karlos Rodriguez, cello) believes in the unity that can be achieved through music and imagines programs and projects with this in mind, redefining and reimagining the classical music experience.

The quartet has toured widely throughout the United States and abroad, including sold-out performances at the Kennedy Center, Chicago’s Harris Theater, Miami’s New World Center, and Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage at Carnegie Hall. They have been guest soloists with the Cincinnati Symphony, New Haven Symphony, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and the Orquesta Filarmónica de Bogotá, and have served as principal players and featured ensemble with the Sphinx Virtuosi on six national tours. They have participated in major festivals and residencies, including Mainly Mozart, the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, Sitka Music Festival, Juneau Jazz and Classics, Strings Music Festival, the Grand Canyon Music Festival, the Vail Dance Festival, and residencies with San Francisco Performances, Chamber Music Northwest, and the Met Museum's LiveArts series.

Catalyst Quartet’s UNCOVERED project is a multi-volume set on Azica Records celebrating composers of color whose works have been overlooked. Volume 1 (February 2021) includes works by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor with clarinetist Anthony McGill and pianist Stewart Goodyear. Volume 2 features works by Florence B. Price. Volume 3 (February 2023), featuring Coleridge-Taylor, Perkinson, William Grant Still, and George Walker, was nominated for a GRAMMY in the best small chamber ensemble category.

Instrument notes:
- Abi Fayette performs on a violin made in 1860 by Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume generously on loan from Marlboro Music.
- Karla Donehew Perez performs on a violin made in 2013 by Stefan Peter Greiner, supported in part by a Sphinx MPower Artist Grant, and uses a fine violin bow by Victor Fetique on loan from the Rachel Elizabeth Barton Foundation.
- Paul Laraia performs on a Hiroshi Iizuka viola in the ‘viola d’amore’ style, with a prized Belgian bow by Pierre Guillaume and uses Pirastro’s Eva Pirazzi Strings.
- Karlos Rodriguez performs on the ‘ex-Gérard Hekking’ Gustave Bernardel cello (Paris, 1897) and a ‘Col de Cygne’ Dominique Pecatte bow c. 1840. He is a Pirastro artist and endorses their Perpetual line of strings.