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Praised by Strad Magazine for their “high-octane” performance and by the Reading Eagle for their “spirited and precise” playing, the Aeolus Quartet is among the finest young string quartets performing today. Formed in 2006 under the tutelage of William Preucil, Peter Salaff, and the Cavani Quartet, the Aeolus Quartet is currently the Graduate Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Texas at Austin. Their activities include extensive teaching and performing, educational outreach, and intensive work with the Miró Quartet.  Luke Quinton of the Austin-American Statesman writes, “The Aeolus Quartet is a powerful and thoughtful group of young musicians who are plotting an ascending course…this vibrant group shows great promise.”

The Aeolus Quartet are winners of the Coleman-Barstow Prize for Strings at the 2009 Coleman International Chamber Music Competition, and they have won awards in the 2010 New England International Chamber Ensemble Competition and the 2010 Plowman Chamber Music Competition. Their 2010-2011 season highlights include a two-week tour of China, as well as concerts featuring American composers across the United States made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts in conjunction with the University of Texas.  The Quartet has collaborated on stage with such artists as Eugenia Zukerman, Brian Lewis, DaXun Zhang, Zuill Bailey, Peter Salaff, and the Miró Quartet.  They have premiered works by many composers including Alexandra Bryant, Steven Snowden, and Evan Premo.

In the summer of 2010, the Aeolus Quartet was the Young Quartet-in-Residence at the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival in Vail, CO.  Summer 2010 also included performances at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, the Perlman Music Program, the Juilliard String Quartet Seminar, the St. Lawrence String Quartet Seminar, and the Sunflower Music Festival. The Quartet has participated in the Aspen Music Festival’s Center for Advanced Quartet Studies, the Young Quartet-in-Residence Program at the Pine Mountain Music Festival, and the Jeunesses Musicales International Chamber Course in Weikersheim, Germany.

Dedicated to bringing music into the community, the Aeolus Quartet designed and performed a program for elementary students in the Cleveland Public School system in an April 2009 project made possible by the Frances E. Sykora Outreach Performance Fund. The significant impact of this program has led to its becoming an ongoing project in the Cleveland Public School system. Working in collaboration with the University of Texas through the Rural Chamber Music Outreach Initiative, the Quartet presents educational programs and performances in communities throughout Texas.

The Aeolus Quartet has studied extensively with the Miró, Juilliard, Takács, Artemis, and Cavani Quartets. The Quartet’s other mentors include artists such as Peter Salaff, William Preucil, Donald Weilerstein, James Dunham, Roger Tapping, Heime Müller, and Itzhak Perlman.

The Quartet is named for the Greek god Aeolus, the keeper of the four winds. He is known for welcoming Odysseus and his crew with music during their journey back to Ithaca in Homer’s Odyssey.

The Austin New Music Co-op is a community of composers and performers dedicated to promoting awareness and understanding of new music. Since 2001, the NMC has presented over 30 concerts featuring over 150 new works, many of them premieres. Notable New Music Co-op concerts have included a commission of a program length work by Berlin-based composer Arnold Dreyblatt, a realization of John Cage’s Songbooks, music for the extinct instruments of Luigi Russolo, Pauline Oliveros’ Four Meditations for Orchestra (with the composer in attendance), a three-day series of the works of the New York School, and Terry Riley’s In C. New Music Co-op members come from highly diverse backgrounds, from classical performance to electronic music to formal composition to rock bands. The group runs by consensus and gains its strength from its members’ varied experiences and interests.