Press
“Outstanding ensemble of young musicians...” “Cohesive yet full of temperament...vibrant, intelligent.”
“After the Verona finished the fifth movement with a morendo non-vibrato ending, there was a...magnetic silence. No one dared move while the group held their bows still in midair. This was one of those irreplaceable moments of group experience that happen at concerts, when our individual selves fade out for a moment without breath – before we come back to ourselves to applaud.”
“They know what sounds rich and focused and they go with it, denying nothing of our expectations...Interpretive strength and robust characterization....commanding resonance.”
“Individual parts blended into an organic whole, as if the entire quartet shared a brain...dynamic contrasts were fine tuned to perfection...”
“...fiery ensemble work and big vibrant sound...”
“Everything was clear, luminous, balanced, and the unbridled polyphony of the finale literally shook the hall....Verona: Pure Joy.”
“...the most intense and eerie five minutes of music one will hear this concert season...”
“...a dramatically charged performance…the listening experience was pure pleasure”
“I confess that I have rarely heard a Ravel so clear, shiny, fluid, and a Beethoven so clean, sweet and feisty all at once, as on this occasion.”
“Sensational, powerhouse performance...”
“The Verona Quartet were more convincing...more impassioned, more dynamic and more engaging. Plenty of expression here, the players not afraid to go to dynamic extremes and always keeping the music supple.”
“They’re the real deal; they really are.”
Verona Quartet
Jonathan Ong, Violin
Dorothy Ro, Violin
Abigail Rojansky, Viola
Jonathan Dormand, Cello
Acclaimed Acclaimed as an “outstanding ensemble…cohesive yet full of temperament” (The New York Times), the Verona Quartet has emerged as one of the preeminent string quartets of its generation. The group’s singular commitment to the art of the string quartet earned them both the 2020 Chamber Music America’s Cleveland Quartet Award and the Fischoff National Chamber Music Association’s 2025 Educator Award. The quartet has garnered a reputation for its “bold interpretive strength, robust characterization and commanding resonance” (Calgary Herald) and serves on the faculty of the Oberlin College and Conservatory as the Quartet-in-Residence as well as Artistic Directors at Nova Scotia’s Lunenburg Academy of Music Performance. Lauded for their “rich carpet of tone” and “opulent sonority” (The Strad), they are highly sought after on both the national and international stage.
The Verona Quartet has appeared across four continents, captivating audiences at venues such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center (New York City), Kennedy Center, Library of Congress, the Smithsonian Institution (Washington, D.C.), Jordan Hall, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Boston), Wigmore Hall (U.K.) and Melbourne Recital Hall (Australia), and has performed at festivals including the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Grand Teton Music Festival, La Jolla Summerfest, Chamber Music Northwest, Bravo! Vail, Texas Music Festival, Caramoor, Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival, Gretna Music, Kneisel Hall, and with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. In addition to its position at Oberlin, the Quartet is featured in annual residencies at the ENCORE Chamber Music Institute and North Carolina’s Chamber Orchestra of the Triangle and regularly performs at leading university performing arts series, including recent features at the Clemson University Utsey Chamber Music Series, Eastman School of Music, New School for Music, Peabody Institute of Music, and the University of Buffalo’s celebrated Slee Beethoven String Quartet Cycle.
In the 2025-26 season, the Verona Quartet has an active schedule including appearances at the Cleveland Chamber Music Society, Telluride Chamber Music, Ashland (OR) Chamber Music Concerts, and Ladies Morning Music Club in Montreal. The Quartet also returns to Friends of Chamber Music Troy (NY), University of Hartford’s Garmany Series, Howland Chamber Music Circle, Cecilian Chamber Series in Regina, and the Feldman Chamber Music Society in a touring octet program with the Borromeo String Quartet and will debut with Newport Classical, the Spire Center’s inaugural classical season in Plymouth (MA), and the Bender JCC of Greater Washington’s Artists of Excellence Series . Beyond their standalone performances this season, the Verona tours with Polish guitarist Lukasz Kuropaczewski, pianist Henry Kramer, saxophonist Steven Banks and a string octet collaboration with the Borromeo String Quartet. They will also collaborate with clarinetist David Shifrin for their 2026 return to the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival.
A string quartet for the 21st century, the Verona Quartet champions the rich breadth of the string quartet repertoire from the time-honored canon through contemporary classics, striving for a dynamic, imaginative approach to collaboration and programming. Notable commissions and premieres include works by composers Christopher Theofanidis, Julia Adolphe, Texu Kim and Sebastian Currier as well as Michael Gilbertson’s Pulitzer Prize-nominated Quartet. Championing cross-cultural and interdisciplinary enterprises, the Quartet celebrated several world premieres including a work for string quartet, yangqin (Chinese dulcimer) and dancer by Cheng Jin Koh, commissioned by The Smithsonian Institution in honor of the centennial of the Freer Gallery of Art. The 2025 season sees the start of a new cross-genre project with celebrated American tenor, Ben Bliss, featuring classic jazz tunes of the American Songbook as well as selections from the great art song literature for tenor and string quartet. Past projects include a live-performance art installation with artist Ana Prvački, performances with dancers from Brooklyn’s Dance Heginbotham, artistic exchanges with traditional Emirati poets in the UAE, and a collaboration with GRAMMY-winning folk trio I’m With Her.
The Verona Quartet will release their fourth and latest album in 2026 featuring string quartets of Felix Mendelssohn. Their second album, SHATTER, debuted at #1 on the Billboard Traditional Classical Chart in 2023 and showcases works written for the Verona Quartet by American composers Julia Adolphe and Michael Gilbertson as well as Reena Esmail’s Ragamala, in collaboration with Hindustani vocalist Saili Oak. The Verona Quartet’s third album, released in December 2023, was comprised of György Ligeti’s complete string quartet cycle under Dynamic Records label in celebration of the composer's centennial year. Their debut album, Diffusion, was praised by BBC Music Magazine for its "radiant glow" and Cleveland Classical for the “Verona’s technical precision, expressive freedom, and brilliant, dramatic phrasing”.
Continuing in the storied lineage of their esteemed mentors the Cleveland, Juilliard and Pacifica Quartets, the Verona Quartet’s rapid rise to international prominence was fueled by a swift succession of top prize wins at the Wigmore Hall (UK), Melbourne (Australia), Osaka (Japan), M-Prize and Fischoff (USA) International Chamber Music Competitions, as well as the 2015 Concert Artists Guild Competition.
The ensemble’s “vibrant, intelligent” (The New York Times) performances emanate from the spirit of storytelling; the Quartet believes that this transcends genre and therefore the name “Verona” pays tribute to William Shakespeare, one of the greatest storytellers of all time.
The Verona Quartet are D’Addario Artists and The Violin Channel Artists
Schedule
Upcoming Concerts: