Our recording of Anthony Green’s Collide-oscope II (2016) is the closing tune for this Sound and Music podcast episode!

Desdemona is a New York City-based ensemble devoted to creating unique and inventive performances of repertoire spanning from the Renaissance to world premieres. They have been described by the New Yorker as an “excellent young quartet,” OperaWire as “fantastic,” and by the Wall Street Journal as “behind a scrim.” Fusing the conservatory training of Juilliard-educated members with immersion in the New York experimental scene, Desdemona is known for expanding the sonic possibilities of traditional instrumentation with vocalization, improvisation, and mixed media.

Desdemona has appeared at venues including the Ukrainian Contemporary Music Festival, Spectrum, Areté Gallery, 1 Rivington, Elebash Hall at the CUNY Graduate Center, Princeton University’s Unruly Sounds Festival, Savannah Philharmonic’s Larsen Spotlight Series, the Archdiocesan Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, and numerous home gatherings through Groupmuse. As 2021 fellows of the Banff Centre’s Evolution: Quartet program, they were recently presented by Gotham Early Music Scene at the Church of the Transfiguration. In 2020 the quartet premiered “Magdalene”, an opera by 14 composers for soprano, quartet, and harp as part of PROTOTYPE Festival. Desdemona regularly performs on the Live Oak Concert Series, in Savannah, Georgia, bringing classical and new music to a broader audience in venues from art galleries to kayak shops.

Taking advantage of the string quartet’s chameleonic nature, Desdemona collaborates with a wide range of talents in NYC and beyond, including percussionist Adam Holmes, harpist Sonia Bize, mezzo-soprano Mikki Sodergren, and the Classical Saxophone Project. They have worked closely with living composers including Anthony R. Green, Finola Merivale, Peter Kramer, David Bird, Robinson McClellan, and Kinds of Kings collective, whose six string quartets they gave the New York premiere.

As educators, they have given masterclasses at the South Carolina Governor's School for the Arts and Humanities, Garrison School for the Arts in Savannah, and will workshop new pieces of the students at the Kaufman Center in spring of 2020. All of Desdemona’s members maintain private studios in New York and are passionate about instilling creativity in musicians of all ages.

Desdemona is Adrianne Munden-Dixon (violin), Caroline Drexler (violin), Carrie Frey (viola), Julia Henderson (cello), and Margarita Rovenskaya (piano).

Desdemona is a recipient of a 2021 Chamber Music America Ensemble Forward grant, made possible with generous support from the New York Community Trust, and a City Artist Corps grant from New York Foundation for the Arts and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.

Click on the photos below to find out more about the musicians of Desdemona: