Catalyst Quartet

Event Sponsors:
- Season Sponsor: Available
- Series Sponsor: Available
- Concert Sponsor: Available
- Artist Sponsor: Available
- Garden Sponsor: CACTUS & TROPICALS
- Post-Concert Reception Sponsor: DÉLICE BAKERY & CAFÉ
- Print Sponsor: SUN PRINT SOLUTIONS

The Catalyst Quartet continues our 61st season on Tuesday, December 1, 2026, at Libby Gardner Concert Hall on the University of Utah campus.

Program: TBD

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’re 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.

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

Founded by the Sphinx Organization in 2010, the Catalyst Quartet was hailed by The New York Times at its Carnegie Hall debut as "invariably energetic and finely burnished...playing with earthy vigor." The ensemble imagines programs and projects focused on unity through music and works to redefine and reimagine the classical music experience.

The quartet has toured widely in the United States and abroad, including 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 orchestras such as the Cincinnati Symphony and St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, have served as principal players and featured ensemble with the Sphinx Virtuosi on national tours, and have appeared at festivals including Mainly Mozart, Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, Sitka Music Festival, Juneau Jazz and Classics, Strings Music Festival, and the Grand Canyon Music Festival. They have held residencies with the Vail Dance Festival, San Francisco Performances, Chamber Music Northwest Festival, and the Met Museum's LiveArts series.

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

Instrument details:
- 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, uses a Belgian bow by Pierre Guillaume awarded by Bishops Strings in London, and supports 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.