Omer Quartet, Quartet

Biography

Mason Yu, Violin
Erica Tursi, Violin
Jinsun Hong, Viola
Alexander Cox, Cello

Recently praised by Union Tribune San Diego for playing with a “sense of discovery and adventure, but also with considerable finesse,” the Omer Quartet was named the 2013 Grand Prize and Gold Medal winner of the 40th Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. As part of their award, they completed an 8-concert tour in the Midwest last October and made several concert appearances at the Emilia Romagna Festival in Italy this past summer. The quartet will have upcoming engagements with the Western Piedmont Symphony in North Carolina.

Formed in 2009, the quartet completed chamber music studies as the Apprentice String Quartet at the Cleveland Institute of Music and was awarded the Dr. Bennett Levine Chamber Music Award. In addition to performing at the Institute, for two years they were the Cleveland Chamber Music Society’s Quartet-in-Residence for which they performed on the Society’s concert series and presented student programs in Cleveland-area schools. They have since appeared on other chamber music series including the Fontana Chamber Arts Summer Series and the Palm Beach Atlantic University guest artist series.

Most recently, the ensemble was the fellowship ensemble of the La Jolla Music Society’s SummerFest in which they collaborated and performed with internationally renowned artists such as Cho-Liang Lin and the Assad Brothers. They have participated in the Juilliard String Quartet seminar at the Juilliard School, the Robert Mann String Quartet Institute at the Manhattan School of Music, Aspen Music Festival’s Center for Advanced Quartet Studies, the Perlman Music Program Chamber Music Workshop, and the Banff Centre Chamber Music Residency. In 2011, the Banff Centre re-invited them to give a world premiere of a new work for percussion ensemble and string quartet by Bob Becker.

Since its inception, the quartet has worked closely with the Cavani Quartet, Peter Salaff, Earl Carlyss, Mark Steinberg and Donald Weilerstein, as well as performed in master-classes for members of the Takács, Jupiter, Emerson, Miro, and Juilliard Quartets.

As avid educators, the quartet devotes time to creating original interactive and educational programs. The group performs at schools, hospitals, college classes, and other venues to engage audiences through the exploration of the string quartet medium. In addition, the Omer Quartet has presented masterclasses across the country including for ensembles of the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestras, Midwest Young Artists, Valparaiso University, and Palm Beach Atlantic University.