The Carmel Quartet is a 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...

 from Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

. The quartet performs frequently in Israel and abroad. It has debuted a number of new Israeli compositions, including the string quartet by Yehezkel Braun

Yehezkel Braun

-Biography:From the age of two, Braun, was brought up in Mandate Palestine in close contact with Jewish and East-Mediterranean traditional music. The influence of this background is clearly felt in his compositions....

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The quartet was founded in 1999. It has won a number of prestigious competitions, including first prize in the "Prague-Vienna-Budapest" international competition in Austria, and the Israeli Aviv competition for chamber music and performance of an Israeli work in 2004.

Members of the quartet are Rachel Ringelstein and Lia Raichlin, violin

Violin

The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....

s, Yoel Greenberg viola

Viola

The viola is a bowed string instrument. It is the middle voice of the violin family, between the violin and the cello.- Form :The viola is similar in material and construction to the violin. A full-size viola's body is between and longer than the body of a full-size violin , with an average...

, and Tami Waterman, cello

Cello

The cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...

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The quartet has studied with members of the Alban Berg Quartet

Alban Berg Quartet

The Alban Berg Quartett was a string quartet founded in Vienna, Austria in 1970, named after the famous composer Alban Berg.-Members:- Beginnings :...

, Isaac Stern

Isaac Stern

Isaac Stern was a Ukrainian-born violinist. He was renowned for his recordings and for discovering new musical talent.-Biography:Isaac Stern was born into a Jewish family in Kremenets, Ukraine. He was fourteen months old when his family moved to San Francisco...

, Miriam Fried, and Rivka Golani

Rivka Golani

Rivka Golani is an Israeli viola player.She has performed as soloist with orchestras including the Boston Symphony, Royal Concertgebouw, BBC Symphony, BBC Philharmonic, Hong Kong Symphony, Singapore Symphony, Royal Philharmonic, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Israel Philharmonic, Tokyo Metropolitan,...

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The quartet has performed with internationally renowned musicians such as violinists Gidon Kremer

Gidon Kremer

Gidon Kremer is a Latvian violinist and conductor. In 1980 he left the USSR and settled in Germany.-Biography:Kremer was born in Riga to parents of German-Jewish and Latvian-Swedish origins. He began playing the violin at the age of four, receiving instruction from his father and his grandfather,...

 and Nikolai Znaider, violist Tabea Zimmerman, pianists Ian Fountain and Penina Salzman, guitarist Emanuele Segre and cantor Alberto Mizrahi.

The quartet has performed in concert series in England, Austria, Italy and Switzerland, and in major chamber music series in Israel. Of its debut in Carnegie Hall

Carnegie Hall

Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....

, New York, in November 2004, New York Times critic Allan Kozinn

Allan Kozinn

-Biography:He received bachelor's degrees in music and journalism from Syracuse University in 1976. He began freelancing as a critic and music feature writer for the New York Times in 1977, and joined the paper's staff in 1991...

wrote, "At its best, the group played with precision, drive and unity of purpose."