Harvard University Promotes Parker Quartet to Professors of the Practice

The Parker quartet will assume the new role as part of their Blodgett Residency.

The Grammy Award-winning Parker Quartet is comprised of violinists Daniel Chong and Ken Hamao, violist Jessica Bodner, and cellist Kee-Hyun Kim. 

This season, the ensemble accepted a promotion from Harvard University to the position of Professors of the Practice as part of their Blodgett Residency. The quartet is the first full-time Blodgett Quartet-in-Residence since the residency’s inception in 1985, and the first to join the senior faculty as Professors of the Practice.

For the Music Department at Harvard University, the quartet presents a four-concert series every season, teaches Chamber Music Performance, works with the composition faculty and students, and collaborates with other faculty throughout the university, among other activities.

The Boston-based ensemble also celebrates its 20^th Anniversary with The Beethoven Project in which they perform the complete set of Beethoven’s sixteen string quartets throughout their 2022-23 season. The Parker Quartet will perform the quartets in two cycles in March 2023, first at the University of Buffalo and the second at the University of South Carolina — the latter of which they hold the position of Visiting Quartet-in-Residence.

Recent seasons included performances and residencies around the United States and Europe, including at the University of Iowa, the University of Chicago, the Wigmore Hall, the University of South Carolina, the Schubert Club, Skidmore College, and Kansas City’s Friends of Chamber Music.

They have won the Concert Artists Guild Competition, the Grand Prix and Mozart Prize at France’s Bordeaux International String Quartet Competition, and Chamber Music America’s prestigious Cleveland Quartet Award.

Previous residencies included serving as Artists-in-Residence at the University of St. Thomas (2012–2014), Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Minnesota (2011– 2012), Quartet-in-Residence with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra (2008-2010), and as the first-ever Artists-in-Residence with Minnesota Public Radio (2009-2010).