Breaking the mold. Aspiring to new heights.
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Like the mythological figure from which it draws its name, the half piano/half percussion icarus Quartet dares to fly towards the sun, aspiring to new heights of artistry. Following their Carnegie Hall debut, composer Paul Lansky simply remarked, “This is music making of the highest order.”

Winner of the 2019 Chamber Music Yellow Springs Competition and laureate of the 2017-18 American Prize, icarus has given new life to old masterpieces as well as the future of their instrumentation. What started as a graduate school project that Yale composition chair Martin Bresnick regarded as “one of the best student performances of any work I have ever heard, played with great energy, sensitivity, and precision” has now toured professionally throughout the United States. The quartet was the first ensemble to hold the Klinger ElectroAcoustic Residency at Bowling Green State University and past engagements include appearances at the Horowitz Piano Series, Queens New Music Festival, Adalman Chamber Series, and a Lansky tribute concert at Princeton University held in honor of the emeritus professor’s 75th birthday.

Their 2021-22 concert season includes performances at the Kennedy Center, the University of Northern Iowa, Music in the Valley, Delaware County Community College’s New Music Concert Series, the University of Cincinnati's College-Conservatory of Music, Florida State University, Community Concerts at 2nd, as well as at the Vienna Summer Music Festival for their international debut. Fostering the development of new works through commissioning and collaborating with composers is at the core of the iQ mission, and this season will see the culmination of some of these endeavors with world premieres by David Crowell, Scott Lee, and Douglas Knehans. icarus also continues their iQ Tests, a program that incites collaboration and furthers the careers of gifted student composers, with current fellows Christian Quiñones and Lila Meretzky. Wilderness Suite, an ongoing intermedia project combining iQ with the forces of composer Ruby Fulton, video artist Benjamin James, and geographer Teresa Cavazos-Cohn, unveils new vignettes in Spring 2022, further examining the unique anti-development of the 2.4 million-acre Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness site through still imagery, data, film, recorded interviews, natural sound samples, and live music.

Passionate about educating and engaging with the next generation of musicians, iQ often works in school and university settings. They have given classes and coachings on chamber music, as well as composition seminars on writing for their instruments at institutions including the Peabody Conservatory, the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Bridgeport University, the University of Florida, Yale College, Wright State University, and the University of Idaho’s Lionel Hampton School of Music, in addition to presentations for grade school and Pre-K students.

Larry Weng, Yevgeny Yontov, Matt Keown, and Jeff Stern are all celebrated soloists in their own rights, and together they have found a special chemistry and inimitable joy playing chamber music. They are dedicated to the discovery, creation, and performance of new music, but what distinguishes their approach to contemporary music is a strong training and background in the classical genre. icarus Quartet is committed to performing new works with a studied and convincing interpretation that mirrors the validity of works with performance practices developed over centuries.