About The Quartet

The Miró Quartet is one of America’s most celebrated string quartets, praised as "furiously committed" by The New Yorker and recognized for its "exceptional tonal focus and interpretive intensity" by the Cleveland Plain Dealer. For nearly 30 years, the GRAMMY®-nominated quartet has performed on the world’s most prestigious concert stages, earning accolades from critics and audiences alike. Based in Austin, TX, and thriving on the area’s storied music scene, the Miró takes pride in finding new ways to communicate with audiences of all backgrounds while cultivating the longstanding tradition of chamber music. Miró Quartet’s recent and upcoming projects include a touring and recording project with pianist Lara Downes titled Here on Earth, featuring musical depictions of our planet, its evolution, and the lives of its inhabitants; the premiere of a new version of Kevin Puts’ Credo with the Naples Philharmonic; and collaborations with composers Steven Banks, Tamar-Kali, and Gabriel Kahane, as well as soprano Karen Slack. Having independently released many celebrated recordings for a variety of global labels, the Miró Quartet was nominated for a 2025 GRAMMY® Award for Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance for its second album on Pentatone, Home, featuring two new commissions by Kevin Puts and Caroline Shaw, as well as works by George Walker and Samuel Barber.

It was nominated for a 2024 GRAMMY® Award for Best Choral Performance for House of Belonging, created in collaboration with Austin-based choral group Conspirare. The quartet recently produced an Emmy Award-winning audiovisual multimedia project titled Transcendence, a documentary centered around a performance of Franz Schubert’s Quartet in G Major on rare Stradivarius instruments, available on livestream, CD, and Blu-ray. Formed in 1995, the Miró Quartet was awarded first prize at several national and international competitions including the Banff International String Quartet Competition and the Naumburg Chamber Music Competition. Deeply committed to music education, members of the Quartet have given master classes at universities and conservatories throughout the world, and since 2003 has served as the quartet-in-residence at the University of Texas at Austin Sarah and Ernest Butler School of Music. In 2005, the Quartet became the first ensemble ever to be awarded the coveted Avery Fisher Career Grant. The Miró Quartet took its name and its inspiration from the Spanish artist Joan Miró, whose Surrealist works — with subject matter drawn from the realm of memory, dreams, and imaginative fantasy — are some of the most groundbreaking, influential, and admired of the 20th century.

Daniel Ching

Daniel Ching, a founding member of the Miró Quartet, began his violin studies at the age of 3 under tutelage of his father. At age 5, he entered the San Francisco Conservatory Preparatory Division on a full twelve‐year scholarship, where he studied violin with Serban Rusu and Zaven Melikian, and chamber music with Susan Bates. At the age of 10, Daniel was first introduced to string quartet playing and its vast repertoire. A graduate of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, Daniel studied violin with Kathleen Winkler, Roland and Almita Vamos, and conducting with Robert Spano and Peter Jaffe. He completed his Master of Music degree at the Cleveland Institute of Music, where he studied...

William Fedkenheuer

Canadian-American Violinist William Fedkenheuer is a two-time Grammy-nominee and the newly appointed incoming Artistic Director of the Toronto Summer Music festival. Originally from Calgary, Alberta, Will is celebrated internationally as a performer, educator, and arts consultant, Will brings more than 25 years of experience at the highest levels of chamber music, including his work with the Miró, Fry Street, and Borromeo String Quartets. He has performed on many of the world’s most prestigious stages—from Carnegie Hall and Esterházy Castle to Suntory Hall and the Library of Congress...

John Largess

Violist John Largess began his studies in Boston at age 12 in the public schools, studying with Michael Zaretsky of the Boston Symphony, and later as a student of Michael Tree at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. In 1995, he graduated from Yale University to join the Colorado String Quartet as interim violist. He toured the United States and Canada with the quartet, teaching and concertizing. The following year, Mr. Largess was appointed Principal Violist of the Charleston Symphony Orchestra in South Carolina, a position he held until joining the Miró Quartet to take part in the Eighth International String Quartet Competition at the Banff Centre for the Arts in Alberta, Canada, in 1997. Also an active speaker and writer about all things chamber-musical...

Joshua Gindele

Cellist Joshua Gindele, a founding member of the Miró Quartet, began his cello studies at the age of 3, playing a viola his teacher had ingeniously fitted with an endpin. As cellist for the Miró, Josh has taken first prizes at several national and international competitions, including the Banff International String Quartet Competition and the Naumburg Chamber Music Competition. In 2005, the Miró Quartet made history as the first ensemble ever to be awarded the coveted Avery Fisher Career Grant. Josh has shared the stage with some of the classical world's most legendary artists, including Yo-Yo Ma, The New York Philharmonic, Pinchas Zuckerman, Joshua Bell, Midori, Andre Watts, and Menahem Pressler...

Deeply committed to music education, members of the Quartet have given master classes at universities and conservatories throughout the world, and since 2003 has served as the quartet-in-residence at the University of Texas at Austin Sarah and Ernest Butler School of Music.

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