Erinys Quartet
Roberto Díaz, viola
Peter Wiley, cello

Named for the Erinyes (a.k.a. the Furies) from the Greek tragedy Oresteia by Aeschylus, and with roots in Estonia, Lithuania, Greece, the United States, and Finland, the Erinys Quartet was founded in 2018 at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki where they worked closely with cellist Marko Ylönen. Since Autumn 2023 Erinys has been the Nina von Maltzahn String Quartet-in-Residence at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, PA (USA). 

The Erinys Quartet has performed throughout Finland, the rest of Europe, and in the United States. They have been featured at festivals and concert series including Indiana University Summer Music Series (USA), Mimir Chamber Music Festival (Texas, USA), and Festival Groba (Ponteareas, Spain). They have also taken part in the inaugural Dover Quartet Workshop at the Curtis Institute of Music as well as the Professional String Quartet Seminar with the Pacifica Quartet and Atar Arad (Cleveland Quartet) at Indiana University.

At the Bad Tölz International String Quartet Competition in 2023 they were awarded the Audience Prize Award of the City of Bad Tölz, as well as the Esterházy Foundation Special Prize for best interpretation of a Haydn string quartet. Since 2021 Erinys Quartet has been supported by Le Dimore del Quartetto where they are also a part of the European Union-sponsored MERITA platform.

In the 2023-2024 season the Erinys Quartet will present concerts around the world, including the United States, Spain, Austria, and Finland. In addition to their studies at Curtis with the Dover Quartet, Erinys is pursuing a diploma in chamber music at Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía in Madrid, Spain under the tutelage of Professor Günter Pichler (Alban Berg Quartett).

A violist of international reputation, Roberto Díaz is president and CEO of the Curtis Institute of Music, following in the footsteps of renowned soloist/directors, such as Josef Hofmann, Efrem Zimbalist, and Rudolf Serkin. As a teacher of viola at Curtis and former principal viola of the Philadelphia Orchestra, he has already had a significant impact on American musical life, and continues to do so in his dual roles as performer and educator.

As a soloist, Mr. Díaz collaborates with leading conductors of our time on stages around the world. He has also worked directly with important 20th- and 21st-century composers, including Krzysztof Penderecki, whose viola concerto he has performed numerous times with the composer on the podium, and whose double concerto he premiered in the United States; Edison Denisov, who invited him to Moscow to work on and perform his viola concerto; and Ricardo Lorenz and Roberto Sierra, both of whom have written concertos for him. Most recently, Jennifer Higdon composed her 2018 Grammy Award-winning viola concerto for Mr. Diaz.

A frequent recitalist and chamber musician, Roberto Díaz has performed with major string quartets and pianists in chamber music series and festivals worldwide. He has also toured Europe, Asia, and the Americas as a member of the Díaz Trio with violinist Andrés Cárdenes and cellist Andrés Díaz. The Díaz Trio has recorded for the Artek and Dorian labels.

Mr. Díaz’s recordings on the Naxos label with pianist Robert Koenig include the complete works for viola and piano by Henri Vieuxtemps and a Grammy-nominated disc of viola transcriptions by William Primrose. Also on Naxos are Brahms sonatas with Jeremy Denk and Jonathan Leshnoff’s Double Concerto with violinist Charles Wetherbee and the Iris Chamber Orchestra led by Michael Stern.

Roberto Díaz’s numerous awards include an honorary doctorate from Bowdoin College, honorary membership by the national board of the American Viola Society, and membership in the prestigious American Philosophical Society founded by Benjamin Franklin. As a member of the Philadelphia Orchestra, he was selected by Music Director Christoph Eschenbach to receive the C. Hartman Kuhn Award, given annually to "the member of the Philadelphia Orchestra who has shown ability and enterprise of such character as to enhance the standards and the reputation of the Philadelphia Orchestra."

Prior to his decade-long tenure as Principal Viola of the Philadelphia Orchestra, where he performed the entire standard viola concerto repertoire with the orchestra, including a number of Philadelphia Orchestra premieres, Mr. Díaz served as Principal Viola of the National Symphony under Mstislav Rostropovich, was a member of the Boston Symphony under Seiji Ozawa, and a member of the Minnesota Orchestra under Sir Neville Marriner. He holds a bachelor’s degree from the New England Conservatory of Music, where he studied with Burton Fine, and a diploma from the Curtis Institute of Music, where his teacher was Joseph de Pasquale, his predecessor at the Philadelphia Orchestra. He also has a degree in industrial design.

Roberto Díaz plays the ex-Primrose Amati viola.

Celebrated for his "accurate intonation and warmth of tone" (New York Times), Grammy-nominated cellist Peter Wiley attended the Curtis Institute at just 13 years of age, under the tutelage of David Soyer. He continued his precocious accomplishments with his appointment as principal cellist of the Cincinnati Symphony at age 20, after one year in the Pittsburgh Symphony.  He made his concerto debut at Carnegie Hall in 1986 with the New York String Orchestra conducted by Alexander Schneider. As a recitalist he has appeared at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall. A member of the Beaux Arts Trio from 1987 to 1998, Mr. Wiley succeeded his teacher, David Soyer, as cellist of the Guarneri String Quartet from 2001 to 2009. He is also a member of the piano quartet Opus One, with Ida Kavafian, Steven Tenenbom and Anne-Marie McDermott. Mr. Wiley has enjoyed a long-term association with the Marlboro Music Festival and is currently on the faculties of the Bard College Conservatory of Music and the Curtis Institute of Music.