Reuben Kebede, violin 
Sahana Shravan, violin (stepping in for Tiani Butts) 
Marcus Stevenson, viola 
Pedro Sánchez, cello

Biography

Hailed by The Strad for playing with “tremendous heart and beauty,” the Ivalas Quartet has been changing the face of classical music since its inception in 2017 with a mission to enrich the classical music world by spotlighting past and present BIPOC composers alongside the standard repertory. Among the many composers whose works they have championed are Eleanor Alberga, Gabriela Lena Frank, Osvaldo Golijov, Jessie Montgomery, Angélica Negrón, Iván Enrique Rodríguez, Carlos Simon, Alvin Singleton, and George Walker. They premiered Derrick Skye’s Deliverance through a commission from Caramoor in 2024.

The Ivalas Quartet served as the Graduate Resident String Quartet at The Juilliard School from 2022 to 2024, where they studied with the Juilliard String Quartet. They were previously in residence at the University of Colorado-Boulder under the mentorship of the Takács Quartet. They are the inaugural Fellows of the Kaufman Music Center, and Ensemble in Residence of the New York Philharmonic’s Very Young Composers Program in 2025-2026. The Quartet was the 2024-2025 Curator/Performing Ensemble of the Schneider Concerts at The New School in New York City and the Bravo! Vail Music Festival’s inaugural month-long Resident Chamber Ensemble in 2025.

Performing on concert series throughout the United States, the quartet has been presented by the Austin Chamber Music Center, Newport Classical, Schneider Concerts, and at the Chautauqua Institution and Skaneateles Festival, Friends of Chamber Music Denver, and CU Presents, where they collaborated with the Takács Quartet in 2020 and 2022. In May of 2023 and 2024, they presented full programs at Carnegie Hall, titled “First Light” and “Fate and Yearning.” Upcoming performances include recitals at Mondavi Center, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Four Seasons Arts, and the University of Maine, as well as a second consecutive season as featured ensemble at the Chelsea Music Festival.

Recently, the quartet has enjoyed performing on Lincoln Center’s Summer for the City, twice for the Peoples’ Symphony Concerts in New York, for the Shriver Hall Concerts, in collaborative presentations by Lincoln Center Presents and New Latin Wave for the “FUTUROS - New Ideas in Composition” series, and in a special event by the New York Philharmonic and the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the United States “Celebrating 150 Years of Ravel.”

In 2021, they created the first recording of Carlos Simon’s Warmth from Other Suns for string quartet under Lara Downes’ digital label Rising Sun Music. Their video and audio recording of Derrick Skye’s Deliverance is slated for commercial release in early 2026.

The Ivalas Quartet won a Salon de Virtuosi Career Grant in 2023 and also had the great honor of serving as the 2022-23 Ernst Stiefel String Quartet-in-Residence at Caramoor. In 2022, Ivalas won the grand prize at the Coltman Chamber Music Competition, as well as first prize at the 2019 WDAV Young Chamber Musicians Competition.

The members of the Ivalas Quartet – violinists Reuben Kebede and Tiani Butts, violist Marcus Stevenson, and cellist Pedro Sánchez – have a shared dedication to their roles as educators. The quartet has nurtured students from the early stages of their musical journey to the collegiate level, with coaching experience including residencies at the University of Michigan’s Center Stage Strings program, the University of Northern Iowa, the University of Central Arkansas, Madeline Island Chamber Music, and the MacPhail Center for Music. In New York City, they have coached student groups at The Juilliard School in both the preparatory and undergraduate divisions. The Quartet has worked with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center through the Society’s Chamber Music Beginnings since 2022.