Catalyst Quartet

ABI FAYETTE, VIOLINIST

Violinist Abi Fayette is the youngest of four children in a musical family. Her violin studies began at age three with her mother and continued on to The Juilliard School’s Pre-College Division studying with Ms. Shirley Givens. Other principal teachers include Ann Setzer, Kyung-Wha Chung, and Joseph Silverstein. Fayette received her bachelor’s degree from The Curtis Institute of Music studying with Ida Kavafian and masters degree from New England Conservatory under the tutelage of Soovin Kim. During the 2019-20 season, Fayette was in residence at the Curtis Institute of Music as a Community Artist fellow where she worked alongside teachers within the Philadelphia School District to create and expand music education programs. She is a member of Orpheus Chamber Orchestra.

Fayette’s passionate love for chamber music has led to performances with Jonathan Biss, Brett Dean, Gary Hoffman, Kim Kashkashian, Ida Kavafian, Joseph Silverstein, Steven Tenenbom, Jörg Widmann, and Peter Wiley. During her time at New England Conservatory, she performed alongside the Borromeo String Quartet as a recipient of their Guest Artist Award. She has performed at numerous festivals such as Kneisel Hall, Music from Angel Fire, The Taos School of Music, and Marlboro Music Festival.

As an active touring musician, Fayette’s performances have taken her all over the world with appearances spanning across the United States, Europe, and Asia. During her time at Curtis, she participated in the school’s Global Touring Initiative as a soloist with The Curtis Chamber Orchestra and as a chamber musician playing alongside her former teacher, Ida Kavafian. She will also appear on future Musicians of Marlboro tours. In addition to performing as a soloist and chamber musician, Abi Fayette has served as concertmaster of the Curtis Symphony Orchestra and the New York String Orchestra Seminar.

Abi performs on a violin made in 1860 by Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume generously on loan from Marlboro Music.

KARLA DONEHEW PEREZ, VIOLINIST

Admired for her “luscious melodies” (New York Concert Review) and enlightened programming, violinist Karla Donehew Perez is a founding member of the GRAMMY-winning Catalyst Quartet as well as an acclaimed soloist, educator, and creative collaborator with numerous world-class artists and ensembles. Since the 2010 founding of the Catalyst Quartet, Donehew Perez has dazzled audiences as a key contributor to the ensemble’s “intense vitality and finesse” (Gramophone). She has performed as a soloist with multiple major U.S. orchestras and chamber ensembles, earning honors including an MPOWER Grant from the Sphinx Organization, as well as grants from Chamber Music America and New Music USA. She is currently a professor of violin studies at the Longy School of Music of Bard College.

With the Catalyst Quartet, Donehew Perez has toured widely, appearing alongside major ensembles and performing at such venues as the Kennedy Center and Carnegie Hall. International engagements have brought them to South Africa, the United Kingdom, Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Colombia and Cuba.

With a passion for diversity and contemporary works, the Catalyst Quartet has released three Uncovered series albums celebrating previously overlooked compositions by historically important Black composers. Their 2017 album Dreams and Daggers with Cecile McLorin Salvant earned a GRAMMY Award for Best Jazz Album. For the 2023-2024 season, the Catalyst Quartet is Ensemble-in-Residence at New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.

As a soloist, Donehew Perez has appeared with the Berkeley Symphony, Sacramento Philharmonic, San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, Oakland East Bay Symphony, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony, Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra, Bogotá Philharmonic Orchestra, Sphinx Symphony Orchestra, Sphinx Chamber Orchestra and New World Symphony, among others. As a chamber musician, she has performed with ensembles including Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and East Coast Chamber Orchestra (ECCO), and collaborated with such artists as Joshua Bell, Zuill Bailey, Awadagin Pratt, Anthony McGill, Stewart Goodyear, Fredericka Von Stade, Garry Karr, and members of the Guarneri, Juilliard, and Takács quartets. She has served as guest concertmaster at the Tucson Symphony and spent two years as a fellow at the New World Symphony.

Donehew Perez has hosted numerous collegiate-level residencies or masterclasses at such institutions as Cornell University and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. She has taken on residencies through the Kennedy Center, New York Philharmonic, Virginia Arts Festival, Interlochen Arts Center, and the U.S. State Department. She has taken part in festivals including Chamber Music Northwest, Aspen Music Festival, Vail International Dance Festival, Encore Chamber Music and Music in the Vineyards.

Donehew Perez performs on all five Catalyst Quartet albums, as well as Strum (Azica Records), a collection of works by Jessie Montgomery; and Bandoneón y Cuerdas, a collaborative album with bandoneon player JP Jofre. She recently recorded the solo violin music for Mosaic, a new method anthology published by the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, that highlights artists from underrepresented communities.

Born in Puerto Rico, Donehew Perez made her solo debut with the Puerto Rico Symphony at age 9. She moved with her family to California at age 12. She earned Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees from the Cleveland Institute of Music.

Donehew Perez performs on a violin made in 2013 by renowned German luthier Stefan Peter Greiner, supported in part by a Sphinx MPower Artist Grant, and a fine violin bow by Victor Fetique on generous loan from the Rachel Elizabeth Barton Foundation.

PAUL LARAIA, VIOLA

1st Prize winner of the 13th Lionel Tertis International Viola Competition, 1st Prize winner of the 14th National Sphinx Competition, and Gold Medalist with High Distinction at the 5th Manhattan International Music Competition, violist Paul Laraia has established an international career performing as soloist and chamber musician. Acclaimed by the Strad for his "eloquent” and "vibrant" playing, Paul has been soloist with major orchestras such as the Pittsburgh Symphony, Atlanta Symphony, Filharmonica de Bogata, New Jersey Symphony, Nashville Symphony, New Haven Symphony, San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Sphinx Virtuosi, and has been featured soloist at London's Wigmore Hall, the Shalin Lui Performance Center in Rockport MA, the 40th International Viola Congress, the Kennedy Center in DC, and in various venues across NYC, Philadelphia, and Boston.

Paul has given hundreds of performances globally in venues such as Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium, the Kennedy Center in DC, Detroit's historic Symphony Hall, Seoul Arts Center, Moscow’s Tchaikovsky Hall, Frankfurt’s Alte Oper, Auditorio Leon de Greiff in Colombia, and at New York's Lincoln Center. Additionally, he has been an invited artist at major festivals such as the Yellow Barn, Sarasota, Vail International, Festival Del Sole, incheon music hic et nunc!, Hong Kong Generation Next Arts, Macau International, Sitka, Banff, Grand Canyon, and Portland’s Chamber Music Northwest, where he is artist in residence for the 2022-2024 seasons. The 2022-2023 season also features Paul’s string quartet, Catalyst Quartet, as artists in residence at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, where they curated a series of inspired collaborations and performances throughout the year.

Paul has performed and collaborated with some of the greatest artists of our times such as Gil Shaham, Joshua Bell, Anthony Mcgill, Yo-Yo Ma, Jorg Widmann, Vadim Repin, Edgar Meyer, Donald Weilerstein, Khatia Buniatishvili, Kim Kashkashian, Anthony Marwood, Zlatomir Fung, Paul Huang, JP Jofre, and incredible artists of other genres such as Herman Cornejo, Cecile Mclorin Salvant, Aaron Diehl, Machine Dazzle, Caleb Teicher, and Calvin Royal. An avid new music proponent, Paul has worked directly with many of the leading voices in composition such as Jessie Montgomery (played together in Catalyst Quartet), David Ludwig Serkin, Gabriella Lena Frank, Richard Danielpour, Jimmy Lopez, Todd Machover, and maintains an especially close artistic partnership with Taiwanese composer Shiuan Chang, with whom he is crafting a new work as a requiem for peace in our troubled times.

Paul comes from a Philadelphian viola lineage, beginning studies with Brynina Socolofsky (student of Leonard Mogill), and then continuing with Choon-jin Chang (Principal, Philadelphia Orchestra) and Che-hung Chen, through Temple University’s Center for Talented Youth and the Settlement Music School. In 2007, Paul entered the New England Conservatory of Music with full merit scholarship and began the most central stage of his training under Kim Kashkashian for 4 years, making musical friends and colleagues that continue to influence him to this day.  Other major musical influences from his time at NEC include Dimitri Murath, Roger Tapping, Donald Weilerstein, Paul Katz, and after NEC, Steven Dann at the Glenn Gould School.

    Paul believes that it is crucial to expose the highest level of classical music to all people, and actively engages in community performances, gives masterclasses, performs new music, and explores the boundaries of how classical music is traditionally presented. Paul has brought music to inner city schools, Native American Reservations, hospitals, nursing homes, and has presented concerts to areas and communities with limited access to live concert music. As of 2023 Paul has joined the faculty of the Boston Conservatory at the Berklee School of Music in order to pass on his belief in music’s power to heal and to connect people. Paul is also a recipient of the Sphinx Organization's 2019 MPower artist-grant for his innovative work in self produced/engineered recording projects. Paul’s musical work, as well as his musical writings have been featured in the NYtimes, Strad Magazine, on NPR, and WQXR multiple times.

Paul performs on a beautiful Hiroshi Iizuka viola in the ‘viola d’amore’ style, a prized Belgian bow by Pierre Guillaume awarded by the Bishops Strings shop in London, and is a proud supporter of Pirastro’s Eva Pirazzi Strings.

KARLOS RODRIGUEZ, CELLO

An advocate for multifaceted musical diversity in the 21st century and a founding member of the GRAMMY award winning Catalyst Quartet, Cuban-American cellist Karlos Rodriguez is an avid soloist, recitalist, chamber musician, clinician, recording artist, writer, and administrator. Rodriguez made his orchestral debut with the New World Symphony at the age of 13 to critical acclaim. Laureate of competitions and prizes including Florida’s State Cello Prize, Sphinx Competition, Irene Muir Performance Prize, and the Bergamo Classic Music Award (Switzerland) Rodriguez has appeared at many of the United States’ major musical venues, including Carnegie Hall, David Geffen Hall, Alice Tully Hall, The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, The New World Center, Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center, and Radio City Music Hall, to name a few. Karlos has also appeared as soloist with the Filharmonica de Bogotá, Cincinnati Symphony, New Haven Symphony, San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, Sphinx Virtuosi, and Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. Rodriguez has had the honor of working with distinguished artists and members the Beaux Arts Trio, American, Cavani, Cleveland, Emerson, Guarneri, Juilliard, Miami, Orion, Tokyo, Takács, and Vermeer String Quartets; Janos Starker, Lynn Harrell, Zuill Bailey, Pieter Wispelway, Cécile McLorin Salvant, J’Nai Bridges, Julia Bullock, Rachel Barton-pine, Awadagin Pratt, Joshua Bell, Anthony McGill, Paul Neubauer, and Steven Isserlis. His teachers have included Richard Aaron, Peter Wiley, and David Soyer. New music is central to Karlos’ work as a performer and has commissioned, premiered, and received grants engaging many of the most important composers of our time. A great interest in dance has led to collaborations with the Thomas/Ortiz Dance Company, Freefall, Mark Morris Dance Group, Vail International Dance Festival, Herman Cornejo, and Chita Rivera. Rodriguez has been a guest artist and artist in residence at the Encore music institute, Chamber Music Northwest, Music in the Vineyards, Metropolitan Museum of Art; the Sarasota, Strings, Sitka, Aspen, Ascent, Grand Canyon, Great Lakes, Kneisel Hall, Lake Champlain music festivals; and Napa’s Festival Del Sole. As an educator, he has served as Director of Artistic Affairs for the Sphinx Performance Academy at the Cleveland Institute of Music, Curtis Institute of Music, Juilliard School, and has given master classes domestically and abroad. Rodriguez has worked on various commercials, films, collaborated with pop artists such as Shakira, John Legend, Pink Martini, contributed to numerous Broadway musicals, and is a member of the Radio City Music Hall Orchestra. Karlos is visiting assistant professor of cello and chamber music at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, a board member of the Aronson Cello Festival and former principal cellist of the Florida Grand Opera Orchestra in Miami. Rodriguez is also the editor of Living and Sustaining a Creative Life-Music, published by Intellect Books UK. Rodriguez performs on the ‘ex-Gérard Hekking’ Gustave Bernardel cello made in Paris, 1897 decorated ‘Premier Prix Décerné Par Le Conservatoire National de Musique’ and a ‘Col de Cygne’ Dominique Pecatte bow c. 1840. He is a Pirastro artist and endorses their Perpetual line of strings.