A Love Letter to Chamber Music: The Isidore String Quartet on the Cover of "Strings" magazine

“Part of the Juilliard Quartet’s influence on our mission is their motto of treating the old like it’s new and the new like it’s old,” violinist Adrian Steele, from the Isidore String Quartet, tells Greg Cahill from Strings magazine for the cover story of the March/April 2026 issue. “That ability to contextualize the repertoire and maintain its freshness is core to our mission as a group. One way to accomplish that is by treating the music as a playground — by shedding preconceptions or rigidity in interpretation.”

The group — Phoenix Avalon and Adrian Steele, violins; Devin Moore, viola; and Joshua McClendon, cello — has been on a steady rise since winning the first prize and the Haydn prize at the 2022 Banff International String Quartet Competition, and a 2023 Avery Fisher Career Grant.

The quartet's debut album, Adorations, is a love letter to chamber music — “a celebration of chamber music at its essence, a tapestry of joy, human connection, and the enduring resonance of lives intertwined,” Moore says. “We felt immense joy putting this album together and can’t wait for listeners to experience that same joy.”

Joy is indeed central to the Isidore's mission, Steele says. “In such an innately intimate setting, the community we build through our music should reflect the relationships we build within the quartet. The spark of live music comes from the looks and gestures we share during a performance, and that energy translates to our communication with the audience as a sort of ‘fifth member’ of the quartet.”

Ultimately, this fabulous young string quartet is just “four friends who love sharing music and connecting with each other and our communities, adds Avalon. “We aim to inspire joy and curiosity through our music and to reach as many people as possible. We want our performances to reflect the world we live in — with its struggles and challenges — while also offering a space for pause, honesty, and genuine connection.”

Read the full feature here.

Listen to Adorations on your favorite music streaming platform: oh.lnk.to/Adorations