David Balakrishnan, the Turtle Island Quartet’s founder and ‘resident composer,’ graduated from UCLA with a B.A. in music composition and violin. Moving to the San Francisco Bay Area, he quickly established his reputation as a talented young improvising violinist.

Violinist Brittany Boulding Breeden, a member of the Seattle Symphony and Seattle Opera Orchestra, has appeared most recently as a soloist with the Olympia Symphony, Northwest Sinfonietta, Auburn Symphony Orchestra, Pacific Northwest Ballet Orchestra, and many more.

Violinist and violist Timothy Christie enjoys a multifaceted career as performer, teacher, public speaker and recording artist. He is the Founder and Artistic Director of the Walla Walla Chamber Music Festival (WWCMF), a nonprofit organization in southeastern Washington presenting more than 40 public chamber music events annually.

Benjamin von Gutzeit, one of only a handful of true jazz violists worldwide, was born in Bochum, Germany, into a musical family. His father is a well-known music pedagogue; his mother a pianist and two of his siblings are classical string players.

Violinist Alex Hargreaves is an active performer, having played on stages around the world including Austin City Limits, A Prairie Home Companion, Panama Jazz Festival, Bonnaroo, Newport Jazz and Folk Festivals, and the Telluride Bluegrass Festival, as well as venues in Europe and South Korea.

Kevin Krentz is a native of Atlanta, Georgia. He enjoys a varied career as performer, inventor, artistic director, and teacher. Although he began his musical life as a cellist at 12, he soon dropped the cello to sing for the rest of his youth.

Violinist Petro Krysa studied at the Manhattan School of Music, University of Toronto, and The Royal Conservatory (Toronto). He has performed many solo and chamber music recitals in the United States and Europe.

A native of New Orleans, cellist Malcolm Parson has been hailed as “the most creative cellist of his generation.” According to Grammy Award winner, Eugene Friesen, “He is that rare player with feet planted firmly in classical music and the music of our time while possessing perfect intonation, fluent technique, and stylistic versatility.”

Its name derived from creation mythology found in Native American Folklore, the Turtle Island Quartet, since its inception in 1985, has been a singular force in the creation of bold, new trends in chamber music for strings. Winner of the 2006 and most recently, the 2008 Grammy Award for Best Classical Crossover Album, Turtle Island fuses the classical quartet esthetic with contemporary American musical styles, and by devising a performance practice that honors both, the state of the art has inevitably been redefined.