The Smith Quartet is a UK based string quartet

String quartet

A string quartet is a musical ensemble of four string players – usually two violin players, a violist and a cellist – or a piece written to be performed by such a group...

 founded in 1988 that specializes in the performance of contemporary classical music

Contemporary classical music

Contemporary classical music can be understood as belonging to the period that started in the mid-1970s with the retreat of modernism. However, the term may also be employed in a broader sense to refer to all post-1945 modern musical forms.-Categorization:...

, and is actively performing worldwide and recording . They have premiered over 100 works by composers such as Kevin Volans

Kevin Volans

Kevin Volans is a composer associated with the post-minimalist movement in contemporary composition. He was born in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa on July 6, 1949, and even though he has spent most of his life outside his native country, is the best known South African composer active today.In...

, Graham Fitkin

Graham Fitkin

Graham Fitkin is a British composer, pianist and conductor. His compositions fall broadly into the minimalist and postminimalist genres...

, Michael Nyman

Michael Nyman

Michael Laurence Nyman, CBE is an English composer of minimalist music, pianist, librettist and musicologist, known for the many film scores he wrote during his lengthy collaboration with the filmmaker Peter Greenaway, and his multi-platinum soundtrack album to Jane Campion's The Piano...

, Karl Jenkins

Karl Jenkins

-Other works:*Adiemus: Live — live versions of Adiemus music*Palladio *Eloise *Imagined Oceans *The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace...

, and Sally Beamish

Sally Beamish

Sally Beamish is a British composer of chamber, vocal, choral and orchestral music. She has also worked in the field of music theatre, film and television, as well as composing for children and for her local community....

. They have also collaborated with dance companies and musicians in other genres, notably jazz composer Django Bates

Django Bates

Django Bates , is a composer, multi-instrumentalist and band leader. He plays the piano, keyboards and the tenor horn. He currently lives in Copenhagen where he is a professor at the Rhythmic Music Conservatory and leader of the StoRMChaser orchestra.-Career:Django Bates was born in Beckenham,...

 and Britpop

Britpop

Britpop is a subgenre of alternative rock that originated in the United Kingdom. Britpop emerged from the British independent music scene of the early 1990s and was characterised by bands influenced by British guitar pop music of the 1960s and 1970s...

 band Pulp

Pulp (band)

Pulp are an English alternative rock band formed in Sheffield in 1978. Their lineup consists of Jarvis Cocker , Russell Senior , Candida Doyle , Mark Webber , Steve Mackey and Nick Banks ....

. The quartet frequently uses amplification and live electronics in performance to expand their range of performing venues and repertoire.

Their performance of Steve Reich

Steve Reich

Stephen Michael "Steve" Reich is an American composer who together with La Monte Young, Terry Riley, and Philip Glass is a pioneering composer of minimal music...

's Different Trains

Different Trains

Different Trains is a three-movement piece for string quartet and tape written by Steve Reich in 1988. It won a Grammy Award in 1990 for Best Contemporary Classical Composition.The work's three movements have the following titles:...

was featured in the film HOLOCAUST - A Music Memorial Film from Auschwitz.

Current members

• Ian Humphries (1st violin)
• Darragh Morgan
  Darragh Morgan
  Darragh Morgan was born in Belfast in 1974, and is one of London's most sought after interpreters of new music. Darragh has established himself as a soloist of new music giving numerous recitals at , as well as in Prague, Malta, Nicosia, Hong Kong, South Korea, Italy, Switzerland, Holland, U.S...
  
   (2nd violin)
• Nic Pendlebury (viola)
• Deirdre Cooper (cello)

Former members

• Charles Mutter (violin)
• Philip Sheppard (cello)
  Philip Sheppard (musician)
  -Biography:Philip Sheppard trained in Cello and Composition at the Royal Academy of Music, during which time he specialised in contemporary music. He worked closely with Hans Werner Henze, Sir Michael Tippett and Luciano Berio during this time as a founder member of The Kreutzer String Quartet...