Isidore String Quartet

Seattle-born violinist Adrian Steele is a founding member of the Banff-winning Isidore String Quartet. A graduate of the Juilliard School under the tutelage of Laurie Smukler, he has attended the Kneisel, Aspen, and Bowdoin festivals, where he garnered a passion for chamber music. As a member of the Isidore String Quartet, he attended the Ravinia Steans Music Institute in the summer of 2022 and has worked with such great mentors as Joel Krosnick, Roger Tapping, Misha Amory, Timothy Eddy, and others. Past teachers include Lewis Kaplan and Ron Patterson.

Phoenix Avalon is a recent graduate of The Juilliard School where he worked under the tutelage of Itzhak Perlman and Li Lin as a proud recipient of the Kovner Fellowship.

Originally from Santa Fe, New Mexico, Phoenix began his violin studies at age three with Rick Lohmann and Carmelo de los Santos. Since then, he has attended the Meadowmount School of Music, Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival, the Perlman Music Program, and was a scholarship student at the Cleveland Institute of Music Young Artist Program studying with Jaime Laredo and Jan Sloman. Phoenix has studied chamber music extensively with members of the Cavani String Quartet, the Juilliard String Quartet, and the Cleveland Quartet.

As a soloist, Phoenix has performed across the United States and Europe and has enjoyed engagements with the Jena Philharmonic, the Cleveland POPS Orchestra, the Boulder Symphony, the Arapahoe Philharmonic, the New Mexico Philharmonic, and Performance Santa Fe Orchestras. He has been featured on USA national radio programs Performance Today and From the Top, as well as giving a solo presentation for TedXABQ.

Phoenix’s competition awards include First Prize at the Banff International String Quartet Competition as a member of the Isidore String Quartet, First Prize at the Louis Spohr International Violin Competition, Third Prize at the Johansen International Competition and Silver Medal at The Fischoff National Chamber Music Association as a member of the Razumovsky Quartet. He is honored to also be a recipient of a 2019 EMCY Prize and the Davis New Mexico Arts Excellence Scholarship.

Phoenix is a founding member of the Isidore String Quartet. Formed in 2019, the ISQ has attended the Ravinia Steans Institute, received first prize and the Haydn prize at the 2022 Banff International String Quartet Competition, and was most recently honored with the 2023 Avery Fisher Career Grant.

Actively dedicated to community service, Phoenix has played for numerous fundraisers and outreach programs, and has developed and toured an interactive presentation of classical music history for school children as part of ‘From the Top’s Leadership Training’. Phoenix performs on a G.B. Guadagnini violin, Milan 1753 “Ex-Birkitt”, on loan from Rare Violins In Consortium, Artists and Benefactors Collaborative.

Devin Moore, native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is a graduate of the Juilliard School under the tutelage of Misha Amory and Samuel Rhodes as a proud recipient of a Kovner Fellowship.

Devin has attended the Ravinia Steans Music Institute, Kneisel Hall, Sarasota Music Festival, Aspen Music Festival and School, and National Youth Orchestra of the USA. Devin has also been invited to perform with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra as co-principal violist as well as the New York Philharmonic, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Apex Ensemble, Tertulia, Knights, and Jupiter Chamber Players; he has also given solo performances with the Pittsburgh Symphony and Chamber Orchestra of Pittsburgh.

Devin is a founding member of the Isidore String Quartet and has coached with Joseph Lin, Laurie Smukler, Joel Krosnick, and Roger Tapping. The ISQ has given performances in concert halls nationwide and was enrolled in the Honors Chamber Music Program at the Juilliard School. In the summer of 2022, the ISQ attended Ravinia as one of the student ensembles in residence. In September in 2022, the quartet was awarded first prize and the Haydn Prize at the 14th Annual Banff International String Quartet Competition. Most recently, the ISQ was awarded a 2023 Avery Fisher Career Grant. Devin is also a chamber music coach for the New York Youth Symphony Chamber Music Program. Devin is Co-Founder and Creative Director for the Greenroom Ensemble, an organization dedicated to performing and raising awareness for works by composers of underrepresented communities.

At the Juilliard School, Devin held the position of principal violist of the Juilliard Orchestra, Juilliard Orientation Orchestra, Juilliard Chamber Orchestra, Juilliard Lab Orchestra, Juilliard Commencement Orchestra, AXIOM, and is a member of the String Principal Pool. Outside of his musical endeavors, Devin was a Graduate Classical Music Representative on the Student Congress and, at the 2021 Juilliard Commencement Ceremony, was awarded the esteemed Joseph W. Polisi Prize for his work at the institution. Devin was also a recipient of the Kovner Fellowship.

Devin plays on a 2009 Miralles viola on generous loan from The Maestro Foundation.

Born in 1999, cellist Joshua McClendon began his cello studies at the age of eight under the tutelage of cellist Paul Wingert. In 2018, he entered his undergraduate studies at the Juilliard School where he studied with Professors Richard Aaron and Timothy Eddy. Other important mentors of his have included Joel Krosnick, Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt, Natasha Brofsky, Astrid Schween, Miriam Fried, Jonathan Koh, Roger Tapping, and Laurie Smukler. A founding member of the Isidore String Quartet, Joshua has gained international recognition after winning the First Prize and Haydn Prize at the 2022 Banff International String Quartet Competition. In Spring of 2023, the Isidore Quartet received an Avery Fisher Career Grant, becoming the youngest ensemble in the program’s history to do so. Since, as a member of ISQ, he has made debuts throughout North America and Europe including chamber music societies of Seattle, San Antonio, Evanston, the Kennedy Center, and more, as well as summer music festivals such as Edinburgh International Festival, Lucerne Festival, Bravo! Vail, and Toronto Summer Music. Upcoming highlights include debuts at the ElbPhilharmonie, Concertgebouw, 92nd St. Y, Berlin Konzerthaus, Haydnsaal at Esterhazy, and many more. Joshua has had the great fortune of collaborating with artists such as James Ehnes, Shai Wosner, Efe Baltacigil, Jon Nakamatsu, Barry Shiffman, and the Adelphi and Leonkoro Quartets.