Catalyst Quartet

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BIOGRAPHY

Abi Fayette, violin
Karla Donehew Perez, violin
Paul Laraia, viola
Karlos Rodriguez, cello

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 imagine their programs and projects with this in mind, redefining and reimagining the classical music experience.

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 been guest 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 Organization’s featured ensemble, the Sphinx Virtuosi, on six national tours. They have 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. The Catalyst Quartet was ensemble-in-residence at the Vail Dance Festival in 2016 and in the 2021-22 season were in residence with San Francisco Performances where they presented the complete series of works from their Uncovered Project. In 2014, they 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 Catalyst Quartet was named ensemble in residence for the Chamber Music Northwest Festival in Portland and for the Met Museum's LiveArts series in NYC.

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, featuring Coleridge-Taylor, Perkinson, William Grant Still, and George Walker, was nominated for a GRAMMY in the best small chamber ensemble category.

Abi Fayette performs on a violin made in 1860 by Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume generously on loan from Marlboro Music.

Karla Donehew Perez performs on a violin made in 2013 by renowned German luthier Stefan Peter Greiner, supported in part by a Sphinx MPower Artist Grant, and a fine violin bow by Victor Fetique on generous loan from the Rachel Elizabeth Barton Foundation.

Paul Laraia performs on a beautiful Hiroshi Iizuka viola in the ‘viola d’amore’ style, a prized Belgian bow by Pierre Guillaume awarded by the Bishops Strings shop in London, and is a proud supporter of Pirastro’s Eva Pirazzi Strings.

Karlos Rodriguez performs on the ‘ex-Gérard Hekking’ Gustave Bernardel cello made in Paris, 1897 decorated ‘Premier Prix Décerné Par Le Conservatoire National de Musique’ and a ‘Col de Cygne’ Dominique Pecatte bow c. 1840. He is a Pirastro artist and endorses their Perpetual line of strings.

2024/2025
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