The Juilliard String Quartet is one of the most prominent American string quartets, which celebrates its 80th anniversary in 2026. Since its foundation, the quartet has been the resident ensemble of one of the world’s most prestigious arts schools – the Juilliard School in New York, whose name it bears. The quartet was founded at the school by its then director and composer William Schuman, together with Robert Mann, a student in the violin department, who became the ensemble’s first violinist. The ensemble is currently actively engaged in concert and teaching activities both in the United States and abroad.
One of the Juilliard String Quartet’s current and long-term projects is ‘Letters to Ludwig’, in which the ensemble commissions living composers to engage with Ludwig van Beethoven’s late quartets. The first part of the project featured two new works by the German composer Jörg Widmann, whilst in the 2025–2026 season the project continued with a new quartet by the Iraqi-American composer Michelle Barzel Ross. Furthermore, individual parts of the project are available to interested audiences via live streaming on Deutsche Grammophon’s STAGE+ platform.
A facet of the Juilliard String Quartet’s decades-old legacy is a prolific and celebrated discography, with landmark recordings that continue to be rereleased by Sony Masterworks. Their latest album, released in 2021, featuring works by Beethoven, Bartók, and Dvořák, was released to international acclaim. The ensemble has won many awards, including four Grammy Awards, and in 2011 has also became the first classical music ensemble to receive a lifetime achievement award from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.
The Juilliard String Quartet has undergone a number of line-up changes over the course of its existence – the longest-serving member of the current line-up is cellist Astrid Schween, who joined the ensemble in 2016; two years later, Areta Zhulla joined as first violinist, violist Molly Carr has been part of the quartet since 2022, and the most recent member is second violinist Leonard Fu, who joined the ensemble in 2025. All four are sought-after teachers on the string and chamber music faculties at Juilliard. They also regularly offer classes and open rehearsals while on tour and hosts the internationally recognized Juilliard String Quartet Seminar every spring.
The quartet has performed in the Czech Republic on several occasions in the past – they appeared twice at the Prague Spring festival, specifically in 1960 and 1970, when the line-up still included the violinist and founding member Robert Mann. Their most recent concert here took place in 2022 as part of the Dvořák Prague Festival, at which works by the contemporary composer Eleanor Alberga, Benjamin Britten and Antonín Dvořák were performed.
