About The Quartet of The Longbeards

We, the members of The Quartet of the Longbeards, have quite an unusual pedigree (for chamber musicians, anyway!). For one thing, we were all born and raised in one of Bavaria's most wonderful cities --- Mittenwald, the city where all good violin-makers (not to mention violinists, violists and cellists) learn their craft, play their music, and enjoy the wonder of the Bavarian Alps in general.

We ourselves formed our ensemble, in the beginning, to specifically honor that proud music-making heritage; and accordingly, we called ourselves das Mittenvalderkwartett. We were given our present name, however, on the morning when we played a performance for an assembly of rather unruly schoolchildren. One young man in particular noticed our four beards, which were all quite short at the time; and as we were about to introduce a particular piece we were going to play, the youngster taunted: "Oh, look at the quartet of the longbeards!"

Needless to say, the phrase stuck with us; and we've happily borne the name The Quartet of the Longbeards ever since. Today, the four of us live comfortably in New York City, where we share an apartment on Central Park West and 88th Street --- and what's more, we NEVER get complaints from the neighbors! That's because we've fixed up the walls so that, if we so wish, we can practice together every other night, without anyone bothering us!

And while we Longbeards like to keep our performance schedule a secret [for now, at least!], nothing gives us more joy than sharing our music with every one we meet. This, our rather civilized website, stands as our hope that we can pass a little of that same joy and happiness to you as well.

And now that you know a little bit about who we are, we invite you to explore the rest of our homepage. We think you'll find that the stories we have to tell will prove to be interesting, humorous, captivating --- and, naturally, will inspire you, if you so choose, to want to go and put together a string quartet of your very own!

And on that note, as Vlad would often command us: "Come, Longbeards --- let's jam!"