Sinta Quartet
"The Sinta Saxophone Quartet, alarmingly good and ravishingly charming, took the audience by surprise with its highly diverse program. . . Theirs was the tightest and brightest concert at the spectacularly varied Chamber Music Northwest’s five-week festival" -Oregon Arts Watch
About
“Virtuosic to the core” (Textura) and hailed as “a tight-knit ensemble exploding with power and virtuosity” (Boston Musical Intelligencer), the Sinta Quartet is on a mission to bring the versatility, homogeneity, and excitement of the saxophone to audiences everywhere. Strengthening an already palpable connection with its audience by performing entirely from memory, the quartet provides a fresh take on chamber music that is at once beautiful, virtuosic, and a completely interactive experience.
Having performed in some of the world’s great halls such as Carnegie Hall, Walt Disney Hall, and the Beijing Center for the Performing Arts, the Sinta Quartet also injects music and fun into the air in nontraditional venues. Since forming in 2010 as soloists for a tour of China with the University of Michigan Symphony Band, the quartet has concertized in 9 countries, 38 states, and 2 Canadian provinces, giving diverse audiences a chance to experience a classical saxophone quartet for the first time. The Sinta Quartet made history in 2013 as the first saxophone ensemble to win the Victor Elmaleh First Prize from the Concert Artists Guild Competition, and continued to achieve success on the competition circuit, winning the Gold Medal at the 2018 Fischoff Chamber Music Competition, First Prize at the 2017 M-Prize Chamber Arts Competition, the Alice Coleman Grand Prize at the 2013 Coleman Chamber Music Competition, and 1st Prize at the 2012 North American Saxophone Alliance Competition.
The quartet’s programming takes the audience on an adventure through time, geography, and genre, often mixing classics from the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries with commissions by today’s composers and rollicking in-house arrangements from various folk traditions. In addition to their live performances, the quartet recently released their third album, Sinta Quartet Plays Beethoven, featuring three of his string quartets. The first two, Collider (2019) and Ex Machina (2020), included predominantly recent commissions and winning pieces from Sinta Quartet’s annual National Composition Competition. Collider was hailed as, “An exciting ride! The ensemble, intonation, and technique in this recording are beyond question” (The Saxophonist Magazine), and Ex Machina, was praised as “tightly performed and flawlessly recorded in generous, in-your-face sound” (Musical America).