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Phillips studied at Juilliard with Ivan Galamian, and has coached with Sándor Végh. He is a founder of the Orion String Quartet (which recently recorded Wynton Marsalis' first string quartet for Sony), and is presently professor of violin at Purchase College, and at the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College.

Robert Rinehart (viola), a native of San Francisco, studied violin at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music with Isadore Tinkleman, and at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia, where his teachers included Ivan Galamian, Jaime Laredo, and Felix Galimir. He was a founding member of the Ridge String Quartet, which, during its 10-year career, performed in every major music center in the United States, as well as in Europe, Australia, Canada, and Japan. The Quartet's recording of the Dvorák piano quintets with Rudolf Firkusny for RCA Victor won the Diapason d'Or, and received a 1992 Grammy nomination.

Rinehart is a member of the New York Philharmonic, which he joined in 1992 as a violist. He has performed at Chamber Music Northwest, the La Jolla Summerfest, the Spoleto Festival, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, and with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.

Sharon Robinson (cello) gave her first concert when she was seven, and has since received numerous honors and awards. In the US, she has appeared as soloist with the National Symphony and Minnesota Orchestras, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the Baltimore, Dallas, Houston, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, and San Francisco Symphonies; and in Europe with the London Symphony and the English and Scottish Chamber Orchestras. She has been heard in recital throughout Europe, as well as in every major US city. Her festival engagements have included Spoleto, Mostly Mozart, Aspen, London's South Bank, Madeira, Granada, Edinburgh, and Prague's Autumn Festival, where she recently performed the Dvorák Cello Concerto at the famous Dvorák Hall.

Robinson's recordings include the Vivaldi Cello Sonatas with Anthony Newman on the Moss label; a Grenadilla recording of solo cello works by Debussy, Fauré, Ravel, and Rorem; and a CD that is being reissued on the Arabesque label featuring duos by Handel, Kodály, Mozart, and Ravel performed with her husband, violinist Jaime Laredo.

Joseph Kalichstein (piano) was born in Tel Aviv in 1946 and came to New York in 1962 to study with Edward Steuermann and Ilona Kabos at the Juilliard School. His New York recital debut was so successful that Leonard Bernstein invited him to appear on CBS television with the New York Philharmonic in a special Beethoven program. He has since developed an exceptional reputation as both a soloist and a chamber musician. His concert and recital appearances have taken him to the great concert halls of New York, Boston, Cleveland, Chicago, Philadelphia, Berlin, London, Amsterdam, Brussels, Vienna, Barcelona, and Salzburg, as well as Australia, Scandinavia, Finland, Japan, Central America, and his native Israel. He has appeared with such conductors as Daniel Barenboim, Pierre Boulez, Sergiu Comissiona, James Conlon, James DePreist, Edo de Waart, Lawrence Foster, Erich Leinsdorf, Eduardo Mata, Zubin Mehta, André Previn, Kurt Sanderling, Leonard Slatkin, George Szell, and David Zinman.

As a soloist, Kalichstein has recorded for RCA, Erato, and Vanguard; recent releases include both Mendelssohn piano concertos (Nimbus), and solo works of Schumann and Schubert (Audiofon).