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Press Releases
The Catalyst Quartet Announces New Member Violinist, Abi Fayette, Marking Departure of Composer and Violinist Jessie Montgomery
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
PR Contact: Katy Salomon | Morahan Arts and Media
katy@morahanartsandmedia.com | 863.660.2214
The Catalyst Quartet Announces New
Member Violinist, Abi Fayette
Marking the Departure of Composer and Violinist Jessie Montgomery
“Like all great chamber groups, the Catalyst Quartet is beautiful to watch, like a family in lively conversation at the dinner table: anticipating, interrupting, changing subjects.” – The New York Times
New York, NY (January 14, 2021) — The GRAMMY Award-winning Catalyst Quartet is thrilled to announce the appointment of violinist Abi Fayette as its newest member. Fayette arrives following the departure of violinist and composer Jessie Montgomery, a member of the quartet from 2012-2020.
"Abbi is a wonderfully vibrant violinist who’s fervent love for chamber music fits seamlessly with our ethos to investigate, discover, and unearth music through the lens of how it relates to the culture of today,” agree quartet members violinist Karla Donehew Perez, violist Paul Laraia, and cellist Karlos Rodriguez. “Abi’s appointment follows the departure of our dear friend and colleague, Jessie Montgomery, who has decided to shift her focus entirely on her composition and academic career. We look forward to continuing our relationship with Jessie and thank her for her years of inspiration, dedication and friendship.”
Of her appointment, Fayette says “From my first time playing with Karla, Paul, and Karlos, I was drawn to their musical integrity and multi-faceted investigative approach to rehearsal and performance. I am particularly excited to join the Catalyst’s noteworthy approach to programming, which creates unique listening experiences for our audiences by placing lesser-known pieces and contemporary works within the continuum of the classical canon. I know that many adventures lie ahead with my new colleagues, and can’t wait to get started.”
Jessie Montgomery explains, “After eight seasons, it is bittersweet to say goodbye as a performing member of the Catalyst Quartet. As I step fully into my life as a composer, I am proud to be able to reflect on the work we have done together: encouraging audiences and presenters to get excited about unknown works and new compositions, the advocacy work through lectures and masterclasses introducing the next generation of musicians to a wide range of music that included more women and people of color, the mentorship and artistic leadership in affiliation with the Sphinx Organization, and of course, the concerts! I have had some of my most exhilarating performance experiences with CQ. When the fire was lit (we’re all fire signs!), that stage was LIT and we knew it. In many ways, it was the kind of playing I had always aspired toward as a violinist and I am grateful to have found it with CQ.”
She continues, “CQ have been tremendous advocates of my compositions since the beginning, giving the first touring performances of Strum, and helping me workshop some of my first string orchestra and quartet pieces. And so I look forward to our continued collaboration in future projects such as CQ Minute, a musical documentation of the quartet’s history and aspirations. Though we will not be in the quartet together, our musical connection is everlasting and I look forward to watching it grow in new ways. I wish the Catalyst Quartet continued success in all of their endeavors.”
About Abi Fayette
Violinist Abi Fayette is the youngest of four children in a musical family. Her violin studies began at age three with her mother and continued on to The Juilliard School’s Pre-College Division studying with Ms. Shirley Givens. Other principal teachers include Ann Setzer, Kyung-Wha Chung, and Joseph Silverstein. Fayette received her bachelor’s degree from The Curtis Institute of Music studying with Ida Kavafian and masters degree from New England Conservatory under the tutelage of Soovin Kim. During the 2019-20 season, Fayette was in residence at the Curtis Institute of Music as a Community Artist fellow where she worked alongside teachers within the Philadelphia School District to create and expand music education programs. She is a member of Orpheus Chamber Orchestra.
Fayette’s passionate love for chamber music has led to performances with Jonathan Biss, Brett Dean, Gary Hoffman, Kim Kashkashian, Ida Kavafian, Steven Tenenbom, Jörg Widmann, and Peter Wiley. During her time at New England Conservatory, she performed alongside the Borromeo String Quartet as a recipient of their Guest Artist Award. She has performed at numerous festivals such as Kneisel Hall, Music from Angel Fire, The Taos School of Music, and Marlboro Music Festival.
As an active touring musician, Fayette’s performances have taken her all over the world with appearances spanning across the United States, Europe, and Asia. During her time at Curtis, she participated in the school’s Global Touring Initiative as a soloist with The Curtis Chamber Orchestra and as a chamber musician playing alongside her former teacher, Ida Kavafian. She will also appear on future Musicians of Marlboro tours. In addition to performing as a soloist and chamber musician, Abi Fayette has served as concertmaster of the Curtis Symphony Orchestra and the New York String Orchestra Seminar.
Fayette performs on a violin made by Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume generously on loan from Marlboro Music Festival.
About the Catalyst Quartet
Hailed by The New York Times at its Carnegie Hall debut as “invariably energetic and finely burnished… playing with earthy vigor,” 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 Catalyst Quartet, known for “perfect ensemble unity” and “unequaled class of execution” (Lincoln Journal Star), 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 Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage at Carnegie Hall in New York. The quartet has appeared as soloists with the Cincinnati Symphony, New Haven Symphony, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and the Orquesta Filarmónica de Bogotá, and has served as principal players and featured ensemble with the Sphinx Virtuosi on six national tours. It has been invited to perform at important music festivals such as Mainly Mozart in San Diego, the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, Sitka Music Festival, Juneau Jazz and Classics, Strings Music Festival, and the Grand Canyon Music Festival, where it appears annually. The Catalyst Quartet was ensemble-in-residence at the Vail Dance Festival in 2016. 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.
Recent seasons have brought international engagements in Russia, South Korea, Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, and Puerto Rico and expanded tours throughout the United States. The ensemble’s New York City presence has included concerts on the Café Series at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, at Columbia University’s Miller Theatre, for Schneider Concerts at The New School, and six concerts with GRAMMY Award-winning jazz vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant for Jazz at Lincoln Center, for which the subsequent recording won the 2018 Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Album. The Catalyst Quartet launched its New York concert series, CQ@Howl, in 2018.
Highlights of upcoming collaborations include Encuentros, featuring a newly commissioned work by innovative Cuban composer Jorge Amado Molina and other voices from across the Cuban diaspora; (Im)migration: Music of Change, a collaboration with the Imani Winds; and CQ Minute, a commissioning project of 10 miniature string quartets in commemoration of the quartet’s 10th anniversary with works by Andy Akiho, Kishi Bashi, Billy Childs, Paquito D’Rivera, Tania Leon, Jessie Montgomery, Kevin Puts, Caroline Shaw, Joan Tower, and one young composer to be selected from a national call for scores. The Catalyst Quartet’s latest project is UNCOVERED, a multi-volume set of albums to be released on Azica Records. The initiative celebrates beautifully crafted works by artists who have been overlooked and sidelined in classical music, especially because of their race or gender. Volume 1, released February 2021, includes the string quartet and quintets of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor with clarinetist Anthony McGill and pianist Stewart Goodyear. Volume 2 will feature works by Florence Price and Volume 3 and beyond will feature Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson, William Grant Still, and George Walker, among others.
The Catalyst Quartet’s recordings span the ensemble’s scope of interests and artistry. Its debut album, The Bach/Gould Project, features the quartet’s own collaborative arrangement of J.S. Bach’s monumental Goldberg Variations, the first ever 4-voiced version of the piece, paired with Glenn Gould’s rarely heard String Quartet Op. 1. The ensemble can also be heard on Strum (Azica 2015), the solo debut album of composer Jessie Montgomery, who was a member violinist from 2012-2020; Bandoneón y cuerdas (Progressive Sounds 2017), tango-inspired music for string quartet and bandoneon by JP Jofre; and Dreams and Daggers (Mack Avenue Records 2017), a 2-CD GRAMMY-winning album with Cecile McLorin Salvant.
The Catalyst Quartet combines a serious commitment to diversity and education with a passion for contemporary works. The ensemble serves as principal faculty at the Sphinx Performance Academy at The Cleveland Institute of Music and Curtis Institute of Music. The Catalyst Quartet’s ongoing residencies include interactive performance presentations and workshops with Native American student composers at the Grand Canyon Music Festival and the Sphinx Organization’s Overture program, which delivers access to music education in Detroit and Flint, Michigan. Past residencies have included concerts and masterclasses at The University Of Michigan, University Of Washington, Rice University, Houston’s Society for the Performing Arts, Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, The Virginia Arts Festival, and Pennsylvania State University, as well as internationally at the In Harmony Project in England, The University of South Africa, and The Teatro De Bellas Artes in Cali, Colombia. The ensemble’s residency in Havana, Cuba for the Cuban American Youth Orchestra in January 2019 was the first by an American string quartet since the revolution.
The Catalyst Quartet members hold degrees from The Cleveland Institute of Music, Curtis Institute of Music, Juilliard School, and New England Conservatory. The Catalyst Quartet proudly endorses Pirastro strings. Learn more at www.catalystquartet.com.
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* Photo of Catalyst Quartet by Ricardo Quiñones
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