The Alexander String Quartet is a string quartet based in San Francisco. Formed in New York in 1981, the Alexander String Quartet has since 1989 been Ensemble in Residence of San Francisco Performances.
In 1982, the Alexander String Quartet was the first string quartet to win the Concert Artists Guild competition. In 1985, the Alexander String Quartet was the first American string quartet to win the Portsmouth International String Quartet Competition (now the Wigmore Hall International String Quartet Competition), winning both the audience prize and the jury’s highest prize.
On 7 April 2023, The Alexander String Quartet released an album entitled “British Invasion” with classical guitarist William Kanengiser.
Joyce Yang, Marc-André Hamelin, Richard Stoltzman, Joyce DiDonato, Midori, Lynn Harrell, Branford Marsalis, David Sánchez, Jake Heggie, Augusta Read Thomas, Tarik O’Regan, Wayne Peterson, and Samuel Carl Adams are only a few of the many distinguished instrumentalists, singers, and composers with whom the Alexander String Quartet has collaborated in performance and recording projects crossing genres from classical to jazz, rock, and folk in its more than four decades of music making. Their most recent collaborative project, “British Invasion,” brings the Quartet together with guitarist William Kanengiser to explore the music of Sting, Led Zeppelin, John Dowland, and the Beatles by way of contemporary composers Ian Krouse, Dušan Bogdanović, and Leo Brouwer. The quartet continues to enjoy a long-standing collaboration with the richly entertaining composer-lecturer, Robert Greenberg, with whom it presents series of concerts every season with San Francisco Performances and at the Mondavi Center at the University of California in Davis. These concerts provide a deep dive into the history and essence of the works being presented in addition to a full performance of each piece.
Members
- Zakarias Grafilo, first violin
- Yuna Lee, second violin
- David Samuel, viola
- Sandy Wilson, cello
