Ethel sounds like a string quartet that grew up in a rehearsal space next to a punk band. While the foundation is built on the traditional architecture of two violins, a viola, and a cello, the execution is anything but conventional. They lean into the friction of the bow, the resonance of the wood, and the grit of amplification to create a sound that feels tactile, urgent, and occasionally jagged. It is music that breathes with the city, capturing both its frantic energy and its sudden, quiet pockets of stillness.
What makes them truly distinctive is their rejection of the 'museum piece' approach to classical music. By integrating improvisation and collaborating with rock icons and world music masters, they have developed a vocabulary that prioritizes rhythmic drive and emotional immediacy over academic purity. Their performances often feature a 'wall of sound' quality rarely heard in chamber music, where the four instruments interlock like gears in a complex, beautiful machine.
Start with their self-titled 2003 debut to hear how they redefined the quartet's potential. It serves as a perfect manifesto for their 'post-classical' identity, blending intricate compositions with a raw, amplified edge that feels as relevant in a dive bar as it does in a concert hall.
Ethel is a New York based string quartet that was co-founded in 1998 by Ralph Farris, viola; Dorothy Lawson, cello; Todd Reynolds, violin; and Mary Rowell, violin. Unlike most string quartets, Ethel plays with amplification and integrates improvisation into its performances. The group's current membership includes violinists Kip Jones and Corin Lee. According to The New York Times, "The quartet called itself Hazardous Materials for its earliest concerts, a name soon dropped for its negative connotations. As the players considered other names, Ms. Rowell remembered a scene from the movie Shakespeare in Love: Shakespeare racked with writer's block as he tried to complete a play called Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate's Daughter. Ms. Rowell suggested Ethel as a name. Improbably, it stuck." Ethel performs original music as well as works by notable contemporary composers such as Julia Wolfe, John Zorn, Don Byron, Marcelo Zarvos, Pamela Z, Phil Kline, John King and many more. The group's 2004–2005 season culminated with a 45-city U.S. and European tour with the rock musicians Joe Jackson and Todd Rundgren, which included an appearance on Late Night with Conan O'Brien. Their 2005–2006 season included the Cantaloupe Music release of its second CD, Light, performances at BAM Next Wave Festival with choreographer Wally Cardona in New York, first-time performances in Miami (Florida), the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, performance at the new Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York as well as at the TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) Conference, and a monthly residency at Joe's Pub. In 2008 Ethel worked with director Annie Dorsen to produce Ethel's TruckStop: The Beginning which was performed at BAM's Next Wave Festival. Months later, they offered another large scale performance, Wait for Green, presented by World Financial Center in the Winter Garden with choreographer Annie-B Parson. Ethel returned to the TED Conference in 2010 as the house band, performing with Thomas Dolby, David Byrne and Andrew Bird. They performed at Lincoln Center Out of Doors in the summer of 2010, collaborating with Juana Molina, Dayna Kurtz, Tom Verlaine, Patrick A. Derivaz, Mike Viola and Adam Schlesinger. In 2011, Ethel was an artist in residence at the Park Avenue Armory. Members of the group performed or recorded with Bang on a Can, The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the New York Chamber Symphony, CONTINUUM, Sheryl Crow, Roger Daltrey, and Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Project. In 2002 the string quartet founded Ethel's Foundation for the Arts, a nonprofit organization with a mission to support contemporary concert music with collaborative projects, commission of new works, and educational outreach. In keeping with this mission, Ethel has been the string quartet in residence since 2005 with the Native American Composers Apprenticeship Project (NACAP), an affiliate program of the Grand Canyon Music Festival, which is dedicated to teaching Native American young people to compose concert music. In 2011 NACAP was presented with a National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award by First Lady Michelle Obama. Ethel toured a program titled Tell Me Something Good with special guest Todd Rundgren in 2012. The program included Lou Harrison's Quartet Set, Herbie Hancock's Watermelon Man, a new commission, Octet 1979, by Judd Greenstein, Sunrise of the Planetary Dream Collector by Terry Riley, Spiegel im Spiegel by Arvo Pärt and Led Zeppelin's Kashmir, as well as an entire set of Todd Rundgren songs performed with Rundgren himself. Ethel is the current resident ensemble at the Metropolitan Museum's Balcony Bar Also this season, Ethel will present a multimedia program, Ethel's Documerica, celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Environmental Protection Agency's Documerica, launched in 1972. The program will feature new commissions from American composers; Jerod Impichchaachaaha' Tate, Ulysses Owens Jr., James "Kimo" Williams, and Mary Ellen Childs, and will include a visual component designed by visual artist Deborah Johnson. Ethel's Documerica will premier at the Park Avenue Armory as part of its Under Construction series. For a second consecutive year, the Jerome Foundation has announced support of Ethel's Foundation for the Arts HomeBaked program to commission new works from emerging New York City-based composers. Ethel has announced that this season's composers will be Hannis Brown, Lainie Fefferman, Dan Friel and Ulysses Owens, Jr., with works premiering in Spring 2013. In 2014 Denison University announced that Ethel will become their first ensemble in residence. In July 2016, Denison University announced that all four quartet members (Farris, Jones, Lawson and Lee) will receive honorary degrees, Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa. The degrees were awarded during the college’s 176th Commencement exercises on
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