Please introduce yourself. What do you do? Why? What do you want people to know about you?
We are the Edgewood String Quartet! In September 2020, in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, the we formed in order to perform Covid-safe, socially distanced and masked performances during a time when no other live performances were to be heard. Since then, we have become one of the first of its kind in the Southeast – a quartet that performs not only classical music, but music of all genres: from pop to jazz to anime to rock, and more.
We are dedicated to breaking down the wall between performers and audience, and classical and non-classical music. We specialize in curating immersive, accessible, and unique concert experiences in collaboration with artists of other mediums and fields, providing concert experiences where the audience can enjoy themselves without worrying about “rules” while being transported through the music and atmosphere.
Our endeavors have led us to over 500 Candlelight Concerts in Atlanta, a performance at the National Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington DC, a start of a new series that marries food, drink, and music under one thematic, immersive experience, a collaboration with the Imagine Picasso exhibit, a partnership with an AMAZING Airbnb cabin in the mountains of Blue Ridge, GA, and an upcoming collaboration with the Monet Exhibition.
We also have an album coming out soon called “Peaches”, featuring all original pop arrangements for string quartet (plus some Beethoven and Danish String Quartet. It’s a little eclectic!) We love what we do and we’re super grateful for all of the adventures, the new learning experiences, and the people we’ve met and worked with along the way. It’s also a lot of fun to wear different hats and play different roles than what our usual, classical musician lives affords us!
What qualities make you different and unique from everyone else in the industry?
We aren’t your typical string quartet. We play traditional quartet repertoire, but our repertoire list expands to Ariana Grande, Lizzo, OutKast, Germaine Montero, Blondie, Led Zeppelin, anime themes, and more. We never want to step into a concert or a show and feel like there’s a disconnect between us and the audience, so we talk a lot in our concerts.
We always try to give some background about what we’re playing and why we’re playing it, and we genuinely want to meet our audience members. We also love to collaborate with other people, because there are so many cool opportunities that can happen when you put completely different fields and creatives together.
We are working on creating an exhibit with artist Bojana Ginn that will use art and music to create a space for mental health.
Describe THAT moment when you realized you’re doing what you were born to do.
Every concert we play, we always have the best audiences we could ask for. We always give a little mini-speech about what it means to us to play for an audience, since we started during the pandemic after not having an audience to play for for months.
When we get to talk to our audience members after and experience the joy of being together, I’d say that’s when we’re filled with that feeling of “yes, this is what we were meant to do”. Every time!
What’s been the biggest challenge you’ve had to go through and how did you grow through it?
I think we had a really great problem of growing really fast, really early on. We had a lot of ideas, but we were happy to dream about them, and each opportunity we got was a huge win. We started getting multiple emails a day asking for our availability, and the size of the projects kept growing.
We had to learn very quickly how to become a marketing team, social media managers, business owners, programmers, event coordinators, secretaries and accountants in the span of half a year! We still haven’t quite figured out the perfect balance for the group so that we can handle it all, but we’re having fun as we navigate it!
Who are the TOP 3 people you’d want to meet that could elevate your career or business? Why these specific individuals?
Lizzo and Taylor Swift, because they’re so amazing with their fans and huge supporters of other musicians and artists! Also we did arrangements of their songs and would love to get their feedback haha.
It would also be a huge win to meet John Williams; he’s done SO much for film music (obviously) and for film music appreciation!
Drop your social media links.
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/edgewoodstringquartet
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/edgewoodstringquartet
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/edgewoodstringquartet
Website: https://www.aliceyhong.com