Dover Quartet
ENSEMBLE Bio
Joel Link, violin
Bryan Lee, violin
Julianne Lee, viola
Camden Shaw, cello
Named one of the greatest string quartets of the last 100 years by BBC Music Magazine and “the next Guarneri Quartet” by the Chicago Tribune, the two-time GRAMMY-nominated Dover Quartet is one of the world’s most in-demand chamber ensembles. The group’s awards include a stunning sweep of all prizes at the 2013 Banff International String Quartet Competition, grand and first prizes at the Fischoff Chamber Music Competition, and prizes at the Wigmore Hall International String Quartet Competition. Its honors include the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant, Chamber Music America’s Cleveland Quartet Award, and Lincoln Center’s Hunt Family Award. The members are on faculty at the renowned Curtis Institute of Music.
Photo Credit: Roy Cox
“Expert musicianship, razor-sharp ensemble, deep musical feeling and a palpable commitment to communication made their performances satisfying on many levels.”
The Dover Quartet’s 2025-26 season features collaborative performances with preeminent artists including Marc-André Hamelin and Edgar Meyer, and performances in internationally renowned venues from Carnegie Hall to Kennedy Center to Konzerthaus Berlin. The quartet’s most recent commission is from Jerod Impichchaachaaha' Tate, a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation and a leading composer of American Indian classical music. His new piece, Abokkoli' Taloowa' (Woodland Songs), is featured on Woodland Songs, the group’s most recent album, which also includes Tate’s new string-quartet orchestration of Rattle Songs by the Indigenous singer Pura Fé, originally for her a cappella vocal group Ulali. Dvořák’s “American” Quartet, a classic of the repertoire, completes the album, released in August 2025 on the Curtis Studio label.
Recent collaborators of the ensemble include Leif Ove Andsnes, Emanuel Ax, Inon Barnatan, Ray Chen, Anthony McGill, the Pavel Haas Quartet, Roomful of Teeth, and Davóne Tines. The quartet has also recently premiered works by Mason Bates, Steven Mackey, Marc Neikrug, and Chris Rogerson.
The Dover Quartet’s highly acclaimed three-volume recording, Beethoven Complete String Quartets (Cedille Records), was hailed as “meticulously balanced, technically clean-as-a-whistle and intonationally immaculate” (The Strad). Other discography highlights are Encores (Brooklyn Classical), a recording of 10 popular movements from the string quartet repertoire; The Schumann Quartets (Azica Records), which was nominated for a GRAMMY for Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance; Voices of Defiance: 1943, 1944, 1945 (Cedille Records); and an all-Mozart debut recording (Cedille Records), featuring Michael Tree, the late, long-time violist of the Guarneri Quartet. The quartet’s recording of Steven Mackey’s theatrical-musical work Memoir was released on Bridge Records in 2024.
The Dover Quartet draws from the lineage of the distinguished Guarneri, Cleveland, and Vermeer quartets. Its members studied at Curtis Institute of Music, Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music, New England Conservatory, and Conservatoire Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris. They were mentored extensively by Shmuel Ashkenasi, James Dunham, Norman Fischer, Kenneth Goldsmith, Joseph Silverstein, Arnold Steinhardt, Michael Tree, and Peter Wiley. The Dover Quartet was formed at Curtis in 2008; its name pays tribute to Dover Beach by fellow Curtis alumnus Samuel Barber.
The Dover Quartet plays on the following instruments and proudly endorses Thomastik-Infeld strings:
Joel Link: a very fine Peter Guarneri of Mantua, 1710–15, on generous loan from Irene R. Miller through the Beare’s International Violin Society
Bryan Lee: Nicolas Lupot, Paris, 1810; Samuel Zygmuntowicz, Brooklyn, 2020
Julianne Lee: Robert Brode, 2005
Camden Shaw: Samuel Zygmuntowicz, New York, 2024
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