Cuarteto Latinoamericano

Cuarteto Latinoamericano is a Latin Grammy winning string quartet based in Mexico City. They have toured extensively in Europe, the Americas, Israel, China, Japan and New Zealand. The recipient of a Mexican Music Critics Association award in 1983 and "most adventurous programming" awards from CMA/ASCAP in 1997, 1999 and 2000, the group has introduced more than a hundred works written for them and has participated in over a hundred world premieres.

Formed in Mexico in 1981, Cuarteto Latinoamericano was, from 1987 until 2008, quartet-in-residence at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. They have collaborated with many artists including cellists János Starker and Yehuda Hanani, pianists Santiago Rodriguez, Cyprien Katsaris, Itamar Golan and Rudolph Buchbinder, tenor Ramón Vargas, and guitarists Narciso Yepes, Sharon Isbin, David Tanenbaum and Manuel Barrueco. With Barrueco, they have played in some of the most important venues of the USA and Europe, have recorded two cds, and commissioned guitar quintets from American composers Michael Daugherty and Gabriela Lena Frank. The work by Frank, Inca Dances, won a Latin Grammy in 2009 for Best New Latin Composition.

Under the auspices of the Sistema Nacional de Orquestas Juveniles of Venezuela, the Cuarteto has created the Latin American Academy for String Quartets, based in Caracas, which serves as a training ground for five select young string quartets from the Sistema. The Cuarteto visits the Academy four times a year. The Cuarteto Latinoamericano is represented by Sue Endrizzi Morris and Don Osborne, at California Artists Management.

Recordings

Cuarteto Latinoamericano have recorded over seventy CDs, which include the complete works for quartet by Heitor Villa-Lobos, Silvestre Revueltas, Alberto Ginastera, Rodolfo Halffter, Carlos Chávez, Manuel M. Ponce, Mario Lavista, Francisco Mignone, Julián Orbón, and many other Latin American composers. Their sixth, and final, album of Heitor Villa-Lobos's string quartets, Quartets Nos. 4, 9 and 11, was nominated for two Grammy Awards (Best Chamber Music and Best Latin Music) in 2002. For Élan Recordings they have recorded Ginastera: The Three String Quartets and Latin American String Quartets, which includes the world premiere recordings of Orbón's String Quartet and Lavista's Reflejos de la Noche. As of 2011 the Cuarteto Latinoamericano is under a recording agreement with Sono Luminus, for whom they have released four albums: Encores (2010), Mexican Romantic Quartets (2011), Brasileiro: Works of Mignone (2012), which won a Latin Grammy in the Best Classical Recording category, and "Ruperto Chapí: String Quartets" Vol. 1 (2014), which was nominated for a Latin Grammy in 2015. Their 2015 album "El Hilo Invisible", with Mexican singer Jaramar, won the 2016 Latin Grammy for Best Classical Recording.

Members

• Saúl Bitrán – violin I,
• Arón Bitrán – violin II,
• Javier Montiel – viola,
• Alvaro Bitrán – cello

Sources

• Interview with guitarist Manuel Barrueco about working with Cuarteto Latinoamericano
• Art of the States: Cuarteto Latinoamericano performing Memorias Tropicales (1985) by Roberto Sierra

External links

• Official site
• Concert calendar
• California Artists Management website
• Cuarteto Latinoamericano on Dorian Sono Luminus Records