Formed at the Shanghai Conservatory in 1983, the Quartet has worked with the world’s most distinguished artists and regularly tours the major music centers of Europe, North America and Asia. Recent festival performances range from the International Music Festivals of Seoul and Beijing to the Festival Pablo Casals in France, Beethoven Festival in Poland, Yerevan Festival in Armenia and Cartagena International Music Festival in Colombia, as well as numerous concerts in all regions of North America (e.g., Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Chamberfest Ottawa, Maverick Concerts). The Quartet has appeared at Carnegie Hall in chamber performances and with orchestra (e.g., the premiere of Takuma Itoh’s Concerto for Quartet and Orchestra). Among innumerable collaborations with noted artists, they have performed with the Tokyo, Juilliard and Guarneri Quartets, cellists Yo-Yo Ma and Lynn Harrell, pianists Menahem Pressler, Rudolf Buchbinder, Yuja Wang, Peter Serkin and Jean-Yves Thibaudet, pipa virtuoso Wu Man.
The Quartet has a long history of championing new music and juxtaposing traditions of Eastern and Western music. The tradition will continue in 2015-16 with the premiere of a quintet for string quartet and pipa by Zhao Lin with Wu Man.
The ensemble has an extensive discography of 35 recordings, ranging from the Schumann and Dvorak piano quintets with Rudolf Buchbinder to Zhou Long’s Poems from Tang for string quartet and orchestra (BIS). Delos released the Quartet’s most popular disc, Chinasong: a collection of Chinese folk songs arranged by Yi-Wen Jiang, Shanghai Quartet’s violinist.
The Shanghai Quartet currently serves as Quartet-in-Residence at the John J. Cali School of Music, Montclair State University, New Jersey, Ensemble-in-Residence with the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, and guest professors of the Shanghai Conservatory and the Central Conservatory in Beijing. They are proudly sponsored by Thomastik-Infeld Strings.