"Promise and possibility:" the Isidore String Quartet

The New York City-based Isidore String Quartet, formed at the Juilliard School in 2019 and coached by the Juilliard String Quartet, is featured in the February 2026 issue of The Strad.

The members—violinists Adrian Steele and Phoenix Avalon, violist Devin Moore, and cellist Joshua McClendon—follow the Juilliards’ lineage by “approaching the established as if it were brand new, and the new as if it were firmly established.” They tell writer Pauline Harding about their sudden rise into the world of professional string quartet playing after winning the 14th Banff International String Quartet Competition in 2022, a beloved mentor whose loss has inspired their debut album, and their collaboration with the composer Billy Childs.

“I learned more in the first four months of us being a professional quartet than I did in school, about what I wanted to do with my life,” said Moore.

Distinguished by a refined and balanced ensemble sound, anchored by supreme technical proficiency, the quartet is set to release its debut recording, Adorations, in March, featuring music by Haydn, Barber, Mendelssohn, and Florence Price. It is a love letter to chamber music, to the solace it offers, the wonder it awakens, and the countless ways it has shaped, sustained, and inspired the Isidores.

Adorations is dedicated to the life and legacy of Joel Krosnick (1941–2025), the cellist of the Juilliard String Quartet from 1974 to 2016, who was their coach and mentor. He was an “overwhelming grandfather figure,” said McClendon. “Being in the room with him felt like a warm embrace.”

Read the full feature here.