2022 String Quartet Fellows

The 2022 winner, chosen by national auditions, was Colorado-based Ivalas Quartet. Committed to education Ivalas helped further Music in the Vineyards commitment to community engagement by reaching out to our community partners in the Napa Valley, performing free bi-lingual workshops and concerts at a variety of venues around the valley, as well as collaborating with MITV musicians.

Composed of violinists Reuben Kebede and Tiani Butts, violist Aimée McAnulty and cellist Pedro Sánchez, the Ivalas Quartet has been changing the face of classical music since their inception at the University of Michigan in 2017. Dedicated to the celebration of BIPOC voices, Ivalas seeks to disrupt the classical music world by introducing more audiences to BIPOC composers.

The Ivalas Quartet is currently the Graduate Quartet in residence at The University of Colorado-Boulder where they study under the renowned Takács Quartet. During the summer seasons, Ivalas has worked at the Bowdoin International Music Festival and the Aspen Music Festival in 2019. Ivalas has also spent the past 3 summers at the Great Lakes Music Festival working with the Emerson Quartet. 

The members of the Ivalas Quartet have a shared dedication to their roles as educators. Through the Sphinx Organization, Ivalas has presented educational programming in the Metro Detroit area, with an emphasis on community engagement in schools with Black and Latinx communities. In Colorado, they have developed a partnership with El Sistema Colorado and have been a part of the Aspen Music Festival Musical Connections program. The quartet has also been in residence at the University of Northern Iowa in early 2020, and more recently at the University of Central Arkansas in the fall of 2021.

The quartet took part in a full program of outreach concerts including:

• Children’s concerts at Napa Valley Boys and Girls Clubs.
• Recitals for seniors at retirement home and drop in centers up and down the valley
• Informal performances in unconventional venues such as outdoors in downtown Napa at First Street Napa.
• A recital and performances with festival musicians in the regular MITV concert series. See our schedule for the concerts they will be part of during weeks two and three of the festival.