Cardamom Quartet is a Boston-based ensemble engaged in reimagining the traditional canon and committed to sharing music with a wide variety of audiences.
The quartet performs new and old works, including pieces written by members in the ensemble, with a focus on music of women and non-binary composers. Cardamom Quartet has performed in libraries, art galleries, houses of worship, senior centers, school programs, farmers’ markets, and living rooms throughout New England. In 2018, the group received a grant from The Boston Foundation in order to perform at organizations serving women in need in the Boston area and their cellist won the New England Conservatory Alumni Award on behalf of the quartet. In 2017, they received a grant from the City of Boston & Boston Cultural Council to lead an art-science residency with students at Boston Arts Academy. Cardamom Quartet has been featured on multiple series at the Boston Public Library and in a 2018 article in the journal of the International Alliance for Women in Music. In 2015 and 2016, they completed residencies at Avaloch Farm Music Institute and were the string quartet in residence at El Sistema Somerville, an immersive after-school music program for elementary school students in 2014.
The quartet members originally convened in late 2013 to read music together, and found a shared love of tea and all things cozy, which led them to name the quartet after the queen of spices: cardamom.
__________________________________________________
Lisa Goddard is an active performer and teacher based in Boston, where she earned a Master of Music degree at the New England Conservatory. Lisa holds Bachelors degrees from the Oberlin Conservatory in violin performance and Oberlin College in biology. An avid orchestral musician, Lisa recently joined the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra, and can be heard with the Portland Symphony in Maine and the Boston Ballet Orchestra. She served as concertmaster and principal second of the Spoleto Festival USA orchestra in her second and third seasons there, and played with the National Repertory Orchestra and Lucerne Festival Academy. Lisa is also fascinated by the roots of her instrument, and regularly performs with the Harvard Baroque Chamber Orchestra, Grand Harmonie, and Emergence Quartet on baroque and classical violin. She has also performed with Boston Baroque and the Handel and Haydn Society. Lisa's primary teachers include Lucy Chapman, Marilyn McDonald, David Bowlin, and William Starr. She has performed in master classes for Vadim Gluzman, Lee-Chin Siow, and members of the Takacs, Cavani, and Chiara Quartets.
Rachel Panitch is a Boston-based violinist, improviser, composer, and teaching artist. She has been an artist-in-residence in neighborhoods, in schools, and in Zion and Acadia National Parks. Rachel performs Classical music with the Cardamom Quartet, is a dance fiddler with French Roast, and weaves stories with Thread Ensemble (an improvisatory trio of violins, voices and vibraphone) and with Grammy award-winner Bill Harley. Rachel’s music is featured on a PBS Utah Bucket List episode, and the National Park Service’s “100 Years of Arts in the Parks” video series. Rachel specializes in teaching improvisation and fiddling. In 2009, Rachel founded Rhode Island Fiddle Project, a free music program teaching traditional fiddle and dance music to students ages 7-17, and is currently a Resident Musician with performance and education organization, musiConnects. In 2015 she was chosen as a Jubilation Fellow, a national award recognizing “individuals with an exceptional talent for helping young people feel fully alive through rhythm." Rachel received her Masters of Music in Contemporary Improvisation from New England Conservatory, and holds a BA in Anthropology from Vassar College.
Violist Gillian Gallagher grew up in Saratoga Springs, NY, and attended the Juilliard School where she received her Bachelor's and Master's degrees studying with Heidi Castleman, Misha Amory, and Hsin-Yun Huang. Gillian made her Weill Recital Hall debut in 2007 as founding violist of the Attacca Quartet, with whom she was awarded the Alice Coleman Grand Prize in the 60th annual Coleman Chamber Ensemble Competition in 2006. Gillian performed with the Attacca Quartet for six years, during which time the quartet studied with the Guarneri, Juilliard, Emerson, Vermeer, Tokyo, and St. Lawrence string quartets. She went on to tour the United States from 2007 to 2014 with violinist and composer Mark O'Connor and cellist Mike Block as violist of the Appalachia Waltz Trio and, later, the O'Connor Quartet. Deeply committed to music education, Gillian has been on the faculty of Boston University's Tanglewood Institute, the Berklee College of Music Summer String Program, Mark O'Connor's Fiddle Camps, Point Counterpoint Chamber Music Camp and New York's Center for Arts Education. Highlights from recent seasons include performances at Carnegie Hall and the NY Phil Biennial as violist of the new music ensemble Hotel Elefant, fiddling in Taylor Mac’s 24-Decade History of Popular Music, and performing the music of composer Ellis Ludwig-Leone as a member of the house band for the dance company BalletCollective. This season’s concerts include performances with the Newport String Project, Cardamom Quartet, and a premiere of a new work by composer Mary Kouyoumdjian at the Metropolitan Museum of Art with string trio Triune.
Ariel Friedman is a multi-genre cellist, composer and educator. A winner of ASTA’s Alternative Styles Award, she is steeped both in the music of American roots traditions and a broad range of classical repertoire. Ariel tours the U.S. and abroad with her sister as Ari & Mia, award-winning songwriters and highly acclaimed as New England’s Americana sister act, and has performed nationally and internationally with many other folk-based groups including Scottish National Fiddle champion Hanneke Cassel, the Sail Away Ladies, Childsplay, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra offshoot ensemble, Classical Tangent. Most recently she is one of two 2018 recipients of New England Conservatory's Alumni Award. An advocate of new music and a composer herself, Ariel performs with Boston Modern Orchestra Project and has written music for and collaborated with many ensembles and soloists. Recent highlights include two world premieres of Friedman’s work: "In Question" for 12-piece string orchestra, performed by Palaver Strings; and "Out of the Flowers" for string orchestra, performed by young artists of the Boston University Tanglewood Institute and later re-arranged for Cardamom Quartet. Box Not Found, Boston’s contemporary violin and clarinet duo, has commissioned Ariel’s newest work, “Joshua Fit the Battle,” which will be premiered in November 2018. In demand as an educator, Ariel has been on faculty at Point Counterpoint, teaches at Brookline Music School throughout the school year, coaches chamber music for the Northeast Massachusetts Youth Orchestras, and has her own private studio. She has taught at music camps and workshops from New England to New Zealand. Ariel received her Bachelors of Music from Northwestern University in 2008 and her Masters of Music from New England Conservatory in 2011. Her primary teachers have included Hans Jorgen Jensen, Hankus Netsky, Carla Kihlstedt, and Stratis Minakakis.