The Celentano String Quartet Award is granted to undergraduate students who have demonstrated outstanding performance and study of chamber music. Now in its third year, two exceptional string quartets have been selected as the 2025-2026 recipients: the Yoji Quartet and the Lazuli Quartet.
The award was created with funds endowed by and in honor of the late John Celentano ’37E, ’41E (MM), professor emeritus of chamber music, and his wife, Mary. Its goal is to recognize current students who have displayed exceptional achievement in the study and performance of chamber music. In addition to his teaching position at Eastman, Celentano enjoyed a performance career that included appearances with the Cleveland Quartet, the Eastman String Quartet, the Modern Art String Quartet, the Rochester Philharmonic, and many others.
Both ensembles will receive a monetary prize, professional development support, coaching from Eastman faculty, and the opportunity to perform in the Celentano String Quartet Award Winners Recitals, taking place on Friday, March 6 in Hatch Recital Hall. The Yoji Quartet will perform at 4:30 p.m. and the Lazuli Quartet will perform at 8:30 p.m. Both events are free and open to the public.
“The Celentano String Quartet Award honors one or two student quartets who have distinguished themselves with a high level of ensemble playing and who seek to further develop excellence and musical artistry as a group through performances at Eastman, in Rochester, and beyond,” says Janet Ying, associate professor of string chamber music and founding violinist of the Ying Quartet. “Both the Yoji Quartet and the Lazuli Quartet were selected as this year’s award recipients by demonstrating passion to perfect their craft and sharing their beautiful music through live performance.”
ESM Marketing and Communications student employee Andrew Sieradzki ’26E spoke with both groups to learn about their history, their future, and their March 6 performances.
Q: How did the group form? Where did your name come from?
The Lazuli Quartet: From left to right: Claire Chen, violin; Vivenne Lucier, viola; Kellen Mikesell, violin; and Ariun-Enerel Gantumur, cello.
Vivenne Lucier, Lazuli Quartet: During our first-year string quartet seminar, the Ying Quartet placed us together for the final quarter, and we immediately “clicked.” Our rehearsals balanced the joy of collaborative music-making with discipline and focus. During our first full semester together in our sophomore year, we were selected to play Mendelssohn’s D Major quartet on the Honors Chamber Music Recital. We needed a name other than VECK (Vivienne, Enerel, Claire, Kellen) for the program, so we sat down in Betty’s Café and talked about our artistic identity: what did we want to convey with our music? At the time, our main goal was to create beautiful and intense colors of sound for audiences to savor, so precious gemstones came to mind. Lapis Lazuli is a deep blue metamorphic rock composed of several different minerals that coalesce to form a rich composite of layers. These layers blend and intertwine, similar to how our individual musical voices combine in string quartet, creating a new and complex entity.
Clara Schultz, Yoji Quartet: Simon, Kaylynn, and Mack decided during their freshman year in String Quartet Seminar that they wanted to play in a quartet together. I’m a year younger than the rest of my quartet and joined them during my sophomore year. Our name has two meanings for us. “Yoji” is Japanese for four o’clock, which was our time slot for entering the Pawsitive Cat Café when we were thinking of a name. Furthermore, it sounds similar to “Yoshi,” one of our favorite characters from the Mario franchise!
Q: What does receiving the Celentano Award mean to you?
Ariun-Enerel Gantumur, Lazuli Quartet: Since coming to Eastman and participating in the Freshmen String Quartet Seminar, we have heard so many wonderful things about the Maple Quartet and the Cantante Quartet, the previous recipients of the Celentano String Quartet Award. They were our inspiration, and we admired them a lot. Whenever we passed them in the hallway, we would whisper and giggle to each other, stars in our eyes, saying, “That’s the Maple Quartet!” Their artistry inspired us to audition for the award, and their performances continually motivated us to grow as chamber musicians. Now, two years later, we are honored to be the recipients of the Celentano String Quartet Award.
Simon Cheng, Yoji Quartet: As a musician who has been exploring the connection between human life and music ever since the beginning of my undergraduate studies, I often notice how unusually close a string quartet is related to the human experience. To me, that human experience involves, in our rehearsals specifically, just the simple mutual acknowledgement that although we may disagree with beliefs we hold, we choose to put aside our differences so that we may reach ever closer to our shared goal of bringing our music to life. In the process of answering this question, I became curious about who John Celentano was as a person, and what he saw in string quartets that he was willing to donate his wealth to support groups like ours. Through Celentano’s interview on the University’s Living History Project, I came away with the sense that this award isn’t meant to spotlight “the next great quartet,” but to sustain the culture of chamber music itself—where listening becomes responsibility, craft becomes communication, and to carry that culture beyond our conservatory’s walls. The award’s benefits have bought my string quartet time to sort out financial issues, giving enough mind and energy for intensive coachings and rehearsals. The intensity has made me and my peers confront and embrace the challenge of learning to resolve our differences in order to create one unified interpretation. To me, receiving the Celentano Award means receiving a legacy of one who wants to bring to us and others a special kind of human joy and connection that exists in string quartet music. And for that, I am grateful.
The Yoji Quartet: From left to right: Simon Cheng, violin; Kaylynn Li, violin; Clara Schultz, cello; and Mack Jones, viola.
Q: What music are you performing on the Winners Recital?
Claire Chen, Lazuli Quartet: We will perform three diverse quartet works ranging from the Classical era to the 20th Century: Haydn’s String Quartet Op.76 No.1, Tchaikovsky’s String Quartet No.1, and Bartók’s String Quartet No.1. We hope to showcase the myriad colors that are made possible by the formation of the string quartet, and these are also pieces that we were hoping to learn one day in our careers.
Mack Jones, Yoji Quartet: We chose to play Mozart’s String Quartet No. 21 in D Major, K. 575, Janáček’s String Quartet No. 1 (“Kreutzer Sonata”), and Brahms’s String Quartet No. 1 in C Minor, Op. 51, No. 1. The work by Mozart comes from a set of quartets commissioned by the Prussian king Friedrich Wilhelm II, who was himself an amateur cellist and patron of music. Janáček’s Kreutzer Sonata is based off of Tolstoy’s novella of the same name, which tells the story of a man driven mad by jealousy, murdering his wife who he believes is having an affair. Janáček writes his quartet in a way that attempts to capture the madness Tolstoy depicts. Brahms’s C Minor Quartet is his first foray into string quartet writing, and Brahms apparently destroyed many of his previous attempts before finishing the C minor quartet. The piece is very motivic, almost cyclical with its use of motives from the first movement in the other movements, and its outer movements are overall very driven and turbulent, with the inner movements relaxing a bit into something more pensive.
Q: What’s next in store for your group after the recital?
Kellen Mikesell, Lazuli Quartet: We have committed to pursuing a Certificate in Chamber Music program with Professor Elinor Freer. Included in the requirements of this certificate is a capstone project next year where we will create a large project in the community, combining disciplines of art and expanding our audience. We are excited by this opportunity and look forward to seeing through a detailed project outside of Eastman.
Kaylynn Li, Yoji Quartet: Since Mack is graduating, we’re taking the remainder of the semester to relax and celebrate all the hard work we’ve put in. We do have some upcoming performances, though! First, we’ll be at Simon’s degree recital on March 22, performing Chausson’s Poème for Violin, Piano, and String Quartet. On April 19, we will be on the last If Music Be the Food concert of the semester. Finally, on April 20, we’ll be performing the first movement of Dvořák’s Piano Quintet No. 2 at my roommate Wanyin Yao’s degree recital. We are also planning an educational community project in April and May. Our project involves creating visual art in response to chamber music. At the end of the project, we plan to have some art pieces we can showcase for our first-ever multi-modal performance!
Celentano Award Recital: The Yoji Quartet
Friday, March 6, 2026
4:30 p.m. | Hatch Recital Hall
Celentano Award Recital: The Lazuli String Quartet
Friday, March 6, 2026
8:30 p.m. | Hatch Recital Hall
*In November 2025, the Lazuli Quartet appeared live on 13WHAM ABC News’ Sound Stage with Associate Professor of String Chamber Music Phillip Ying to promote Eastman’s Chamber Music Extravaganza. Watch their performance here.