About Us
"Music is the mediator between the spiritual and sensual life" - L.v. Beethoven
The Rose Quartet, formed in 2022, has shared the stage with world renowned artists including Time for Three, the Harlem Quartet, the Cavani Quartet, Vijay Gupta, Paola Prestini, Caroline Shaw, Rhiannon Giddens, DeCoda, David Krakauer, Kathleen Tagg, Eric Whitacre and Randall Wolfgang. Upcoming performances for the 2024-2025 season include concerts at the Highlands-Cashiers Chamber Music Festival in North Carolina, as well as numerous recitals around New York, Florida and New Jersey. This summer they will be in residence at the Amelia Island Christopher Rex String Seminar performing alongside the Ariel and Rasa String Quartets and at the Texas Chamber Music Institute. The quartet has performed in notable venues such as Merkin Hall, Carnegie Hall, Alexander Kasser Theater, Leshowitz Recital Hall, Woodstock UU and Hennesy Hall at Farleigh Dickinson University.
The Rose Quartet is intensely dedicated to community engagement. Working in collaboration with the non-profit Music for All Seasons, the Rose Quartet regularly presents programs in communities such as senior centers, veterans homes, halfway houses, schools, and correctional facilities.
Music education and mentorship of the next generation play a major role in the Rose Quartet’s vision. They regularly present masterclasses and maintain active teaching engagements, notably through the Paterson Music Project in New Jersey. From 2022-2024, the Rose Quartet served as the graduate string quartet in residence at Montclair State University, under the mentorship of Kathryn Lockwood and the Harlem Quartet.
PC: Mike Peters
Violinist Gabriel Anker (he/him) plays, “with impressive weight and cohesion…" (The Strad magazine), and he is a practicer of diverse musical genres, ranging from baroque to experimental performance. Gabriel's artistic journey has thus far led him to concertize at venues across the globe, including the Philharmonie de Paris, the Muziekgebouw in Amsterdam, Walt Disney Hall in Los Angeles, Carnegie Hall in NYC, and others. He has attended festivals including Aspen, Encore, and Domaine Forget in Québec. Gabriel is passionate about historically inspired performance, and he has studied as well as performed with members of the Netherlands Bach Vereniging. In Europe, he has toured with the Amsterdam Sinfonietta and performed with the Orchestre de Paris under Klaus Mäkela. He believes the future of music is assured by living composers and promotes their works, especially through Kaleidoscope Chamber Orchestra in Los Angeles. Through collaborations with nonprofits such as Street Symphony, Paterson Music Project, and DeCoda, Gabriel, has helped advocate for inclusive, accessible music education. Gabriel is the first violinist of the Rose Quartet (the Graduate Quartet in Residence at Montclair State University), mentored by the Harlem Quartet. He is a graduate of The Royal Conservatoire in the Hague, San Francisco Conservatory, University of Southern California (MM), and Rice University (BM, Distinction in Creative Work and Research).
The newly appointed violinist of the Rose Quartet, Liana Branscome is a magnetic, multidimensional young soloist and chamber musician. She has performed solo and chamber concerts in venues such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Merkin Hall, and the Newport Music Festival and has served as Artist in Residence at the Heifetz Institute, the Windwood Music Festival and Auras Nunes Aula de Cámara in Santiago, Spain. Liana is the first prize-winner of several competitions including the Artist Series Concerts of Sarasota Competition (2015), Boca Raton Symphonia Concerto Competiton (2014), Ars Flores Symphony Competition (2014) and the second prize winner of the New World Symphony Young Artist Competition (2014). She has appeared as soloist with orchestras such as the Vidin Philharmonic in Bulgaria, the Ars Flores Symphony Orchestra, the Palm Beach Atlantic Symphony and the Treasure Coast Youth Symphony. Liana has performed chamber music alongside great artists such as Victor Rosenbaum, Nicholas Kitchen, Demarre McGill, Teng Li, Yeesun Kim, the Mighty Sparrow and Ed Sheeran. In 2016, Liana founded the Palm Beach Gardens Soirée Series, an in-house concert series designed to build connection and community between the performer and the audience.
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Liana served as a teaching assistant at the University of Southern California in non-major violin and has presented masterclasses and recitals in schools around the country. Liana held the Rev. Chris and Paula Gray Chair in the Venice Symphony in Venice for the 22-23 season, Florida and is a regular artist at the Classical Music Institute in San Antonio, TX. Liana will serve as guest artist faculty at the Stringendo School for Strings at Palm Beach Atlantic University (Summer 2024). Upcoming engagements include an all-Beethoven duo program with pianist Victor Rosenbaum and a tour of South Florida with Beiyao Ji.
Alonso Restrepo, a passionate cellist from Cartagena, Colombia is currently pursuing his Artist Diploma at Montclair State University as part of the Graduate String Quartet in Residence. At the age of 11, he began learning the cello because he was drawn to the sound of the instrument. Alonso and his siblings are part of the first generation of musicians in his family, with his brother also playing the cello and his sister the oboe. Before coming to New Jersey, Alonso received degrees from Northwestern State University and Louisiana State University. In addition to performing, Alonso’s devotion to education has called him to pass on his love for cello by teaching at the Paterson Music Project, an El Sistema-inspired school program that advocates for music as a vehicle of social change. Alonso also previously taught music to the youth of Cartagena. For fun, Alonso’s interests include playing soccer, working out, celebrating Mardi Gras and eating gumbo and jambalaya.
Growing up on the South Shore of Boston, MA, Rachel O’Connor began her musical journey on the violin at the age of five. At the start of high school, she started learning the viola in addition to the violin and performed with the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestras on viola for four years. She double-majored in violin performance and mathematics at Gordon College for her undergraduate degree, where she was privileged to travel to Hong Kong, South Korea and Ukraine for string chamber music outreach tours. Rachel then received her master’s degree in viola performance at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. At UMass, Rachel was part of the String Quartet Program, where she received full tuition remission and a teaching assistantship. She has attended summer festivals such as Taconic Music, Kinhaven Young Artist Seminar, Aria International Summer Academy, and Credo Music. Rachel is currently a violist in the artist diploma program at the Cali School of Music of Montclair State University, where she is a member of the Rose Quartet, the graduate string quartet in residence. Outside of music, Rachel enjoys hiking, biking, swimming, playing card games, shopping at thrift stores and going to amusement parks.
Photography by Titilayo Ayangade