Since its founding in 1965 by the renowned Italian violinist Giorgio Ciompi, the Ciompi Quartet of Duke University has delighted audiences and impressed critics around the world. All its members are professors at Duke, where they teach instrumental lessons, coordinate and coach chamber music, and perform across campus in concert halls, libraries, dormitories and classrooms. In a career that spans five continents and includes many hundreds of concerts, the Ciompi Quartet has developed a reputation for performances of real intelligence and musical sophistication, with a warm, unified sound that allows each player’s individual voice to emerge.

In 2018-19 Caroline Stinson joined the Quartet, replacing Fred Raimi as cellist. Her refined musical voice, brilliant instrumental technique and distinguished history as a solo and ensemble player augur an exciting new chapter in the distinguished history of the Ciompi Quartet. In recent years, the Ciompi Quartet has performed from Washington State to California, Texas, New York, Washington DC and New England, and abroad from China to France, Italy, Germany, Prague, Serbia, Taiwan and Albania. In the summer the Quartet has performed at the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival in Detroit, North Carolina’s Eastern Music Festival and Highlands Chamber Music Festival, and at Monadnock Music in New Hampshire.

Collaborations have included the distinguished talents of pianists Bella Davidovich, Menahem Pressler and James Tocco, the Borromeo Quartet, saxophonist Branford Marsalis, soprano Tony Arnold, and jazz vocalist Nnenna Freelon, among many others. The Quartet’s commitment to creative programming often mixes the old and the brand new in exciting ways.Its extensive catalog of commissions includes many that the group continues to perform on tour. Close ties to composers such as Paul Schoenfield, Stephen Jaffe, Scott Lindroth, and Melinda Wagner have produced important contributions to the repertoire. The group’s recordings appear on Toccata Classics, Naxos, CRI, Arabesque, Albany, Gasparo, and Sheffield Lab labels, with music from Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, up through the present.