Please help us to find a good quartet name!
Hi! I'm posting this on behalf of the string quartet me, my twin and two other friends from our local music service have set up. We urgently need your help on choosing a name as we are finding it very difficult to find a name that carefully reflects who we are and what we do.
We are all English, from the Midlands.
The two violins are Alice (me, age 15) and Charlotte (14), the violist is called James (my twin, 15) and our cellist is called Daisy (16).
We all have a common love for music and aim to have a diverse repertoire ranging from baroque music, all the way to contemporary and pop.
We would like the name to be quite professional and sophisticated and we would appreciate suggestions not being 'teen' this, that and the other.
Thank you for reading this, we welcome any suggestions!! :D
...Hi, sorry it took me so long to respond!!
Thanks for all the suggestions, in the end we settled on the Quentin Quartet for no reason at all except our quartet coach had just moved from Cornwall and we knew that Caroline Quentin hosted a TV programme about Cornwall.
It may not have any special meaning but it sounds good haha!
Thanks so so much for the responses, they were all great and i'll definitely return to this thread if i ever need to :)
Replies (24)
They're ENGLISH - Leave Heather to the Scots! If they were from Birmingham, the Brhams Quartet would fit perfectly (I think the other spelling may already have been used, but if so, the people do not seem to be well known). If they can find a regional name (either town, area, of Latin name of a plant in the area), I think that would do - I was just thinking of "The Black Country Quartet", but they may not be from there either.
What about After Eight Quartet?
I admit to not know much about England but I think these delicious mint chololates come from there, no? Also, people usually go to serious concerts in the evening...
At which hour do people drink tea (traditionally).
Afternoon? Well, Afternoon Quartet is perhaps a little too simple but perhaps 2 o clock or 4 o clock quartet???
If you were kids I would say String Scones but I know that you want to sound professional...
We have an English Stable named Riverside near my place. Riverside Quartet sounds nice to me too.
Good luck :)
Anne-Marie
The eternal question! I remember spending a lot of gig carpools tossing around this idea when I was trying to come up with a name for my own gig quartet back when I lived in Colorado! I finally did settle on the "Aurora Quartet" -- named after the town where I grew up, after the sunrise and also, there's a pretty nice Ysaye sonata by the same name. It actually works better, in a different city (it was too conspicuous of a name where that was a major city)!
Do you have anything of meaning to you four that you could somehow co-opt into a name? The building where you first played together, a saint, a sinner, a Greek goddess or idea? Maybe a campground or statue? Name of a painting? Character in book? If it means something to you, you will like it better!
Unfortunately there is a Bellis Quartet (Jazz) in the States, but Dorotheanthus bellidiformis is the Latin name for the Livingstone (as opposed to the common) Daisy. There is a Dorothea Mission (very good mission, actually), but I can't find any reference to a Dorothea Quartet.
Here is something more edgy: &NOW Quartet
great suggestion Jorge!
Your initials spell 'JAC'D'
...which is kinda fun if you mean muscular...or customized. Which is how I tend to take it...
But maybe it also has too many negative connotations?
Well, Midlands is next to Yorkshire, Brontë Quartet.
The Redcoat Quarter (not quartet)
Oberon quartet .
Oberon was the King of the Faeries in Shakespeare's
Midsummernights' Dream
and an opera by Weber. But sorry: http://www.st.catherines.org/page/Arts/Music/Oberon-Quartet .
But if you want a literary reference to the Midlands, how about the Eliot Quartet, as George Eliot also grew up in the Midlands - And you'd have great fun explaining that you were nothing to do with T.S.Eliot's Four Quartets. Or you could name yourselves after one of the Midlands-domiciled characters in one of her novels (if one exists).
But hey! We don't know where exactly in the Midlands you are, so why not find out which composer or other great musician of the past lived nearest you and, if their name hasn't already been taken (You can check this on google), adopt it as the name of your Quartet?
Too bad about Oberon.
OK, Dorian Quartet: there is one somewhere in the far East. Shouldn't cause any confusion.
What about Cymbeline Quartet.
Check out Emily Grossman's blog, in particular, the name of it.
How about the Kairos Quartet? Has kind of a nice ring (and meaning!).
kairos4tet.com . Saurie Laurie!
I think the Greek word Charis, meaning Grace is still available for naming a quartet. It would, however, vaguely associate you with Christianity (I've no idea whether this would suit you).
But since your planned repertoire stretches from Baroque to contemporary and pop, how about
The Barcarolle Quartet
(Incorporating BACH and Rock and ROLL)?
Or you could call yourselves the Phrygian Quartet ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanide_%28Gaea_trilogy%29 , "There is also one Phrygian quartet of three females and one male"), if you want to be associated with New Age (I wouldn't!).
As two of you are twins, you could call yourself the Didymi Quartet.
Unfortunately you cannot call yourselves the Tandem Quartet (in honour of what the name Daisy is still probably best known for), because there already is a Tandem Jazz Quartet.
John, in french Charisme or Charisma in english means charm. Someone with charisme is a charming person.
Maybe Charisma Quartet then?
I still think you could use it, those guys are jazzers and they have a "4tet" not a "Quartet" lol!
Every name on the planet has likely been done before. Sigh!
Alice, you will have to share with us, whatever you come up with!
Laurie, every name on the planet may well have been done before, but if you can't google a quartet of that name you're in with a chance. Are you sure Alice et al. aren't going to do jazz, when they say they intend to do anything from baroque to contemporary and pop? Remember the jazz guys who strayed into classical, like Dankworth with Facade (I think Norma Winstone would make a brilliant job of Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5), or who strayed and stayed like Previn or those known in both media, like Gershwin and Richard Rodney Bennett?
There's a googleable lady's vocal quartet called "Charisma!", but no googleable quartet called "Charis" (which is also a girl's name, I met one this summer), or any of the other names I seriously suggested.
Hi, sorry it took me a year to respond!!
Thanks for all the suggestions, in the end we settled on the Quentin Quartet for no reason at all except our quartet coach had just moved from Cornwall and we knew that Caroline Quentin hosted a TV programme about Cornwall.
It may not have any special meaning but it sounds good haha!
Thanks so so much for the responses, they were all great and i'll definitely return to this thread if i ever need to :)
But what happens when you become a quintet?
A good name for an English quartet would have been Methera, but that name has already been taken.
"Methera", which means "four", comes from the English sheep farming community and is one of a sequence of rhyming words used by shepherds to count their sheep - I don't know whether they still do.
The counting sequence up to 10 is: Yan, Tan, Tethera, Methera, Pip, Sethera, Lethera, Hovera, Dovera, Dick. The rhythm of this sequence seems to suggest counting in fives on one's fingers. If you don't keep sheep I suppose you could always use the words for counting rest bars in symphonies and the like :)
The Methera Quartet specializes in their own arrangements of English traditional music, and in compositions by members of the quartet.
A good name could be "Fourplay." (and then as a quintet "Fiveplay ...:)
You are from the Midlands, so probably from the old Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia. But 'Mercian String Quartet' is already taken. So how about naming yourself after the Lady of the Mercians, the Queen of Mercia who was the daughter of Alfred the Great.
The Aethelflaed Quartet or (simplified) the Athelflad Quartet.
Do tell us what you eventually choose and why. I love looking for names, but the best always seem to be taken.
With the Cornwall connection, you never thought of calling yourselves the Camilla Quartet, did you?
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October 2, 2013 at 03:20 PM · how about the Erica Quartet?
Erica is not just a girl's name but also the scientific name of a nice plant. the common name of that plant is Heather, so why not even the Heather Quartet
just some random idea but it is often a good source of inspiration to take the Latin name of plants, or animals, as the name for something.
by the way I think it is hopeless to try to find a perfect name that "reflects everything you do" as you write, you just need to have a name that works, that's all.