Catalyst Quartet
About
The Grammy Award-winning Catalyst Quartet was founded by the internationally acclaimed Sphinx Organization in 2010. The ensemble (Karla Donehew Perez, violin; Abi Fayette, violin; Paul Laraia, viola; and Karlos Rodriguez, cello) believes in the unity that can be achieved through music and imagines their programs and projects with this in mind, redefining and reimagining the classical music experience.
The quartet has toured widely throughout the United States and abroad, including sold-out performances at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., at Chicago’s Harris Theater, Miami’s New World Center, and the Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage at Carnegie Hall in New York. The quartet has been a guest soloist with the Cincinnati and New Haven symphony orchestras, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and the Orquesta Filarmónica de Bogotá. The members have served individually as principal players and together as the featured ensemble with the Sphinx Virtuosi on six national tours.
They have been invited to perform at important music festivals such as Mainly Mozart in San Diego, Great Lakes Chamber, Sitka, Juneau Jazz and Classics, Strings, and Grand Canyon music festivals. The quartet was ensemble in residence at the Vail Dance Festival in 2016 and in the 2021-22 season was in residence with San Francisco Performances where it presented the complete series of works from its "Uncovered" project. In 2014, it opened the Festival del Sole in Napa, California with Joshua Bell and participated in England’s Aldeburgh Music Foundation String Quartet Residency with two performances in Jubilee Hall. In 2022 the quartet was named ensemble in residence for the Chamber Music Northwest Festival in Portland and for the Met Museum's LiveArts series in New York City.
Catalyst Quartet’s largest ongoing project "Uncovered" is a multi-volume set of albums on Azica records that celebrates composers of color whose works have been overlooked by the traditional canon. Volume 1, released in February 2021, includes the string quartet and quintets of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor with clarinetist Anthony McGill and pianist Stewart Goodyear. Volume 2 features works by Florence B. Price and Volume 3, released in February 2023 and featuring Coleridge-Taylor, Perkinson, William Grant Still, and George Walker, was nominated for a Grammy in the best small chamber ensemble category.
