The eclectic and highly polished Beo String Quartet, founded in 2015, has created a niche for itself as a daring, genre-defying ensemble. Rigorously trained in the classical tradition, violinists Jason Neukom and Andrew Giordano, violist Sean Neukom, and cellist Ryan Ash also know their way around contemporary expression, including the use of electronics, live sound processing, and spatial audio manipulation. Their performances of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, or Shostakovich have been compared to those of the best among 21 st century international string quartets.

Concert Program

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Our Performers

Jason Neukom (violin)

Jason is a founding member and violinist of the Beo String Quartet and has dedicated the majority of his career to chamber music both in performance and in education. While formal violin lessons didn’t happen for him until college, Jason grew up playing music daily with his parents and his brother/Beo violist, Sean Neukom.

Andrew Giordano (violin)

A native of Williamsport, Pennsylvania, Andrew Giordano began playing the violin at the age of five. In 2022, he won the violin position with the Pittsburgh-based, forward-looking Beo String Quartet. Before joining Beo, he was a founding member and performed with the award-winning Altius Quartet for nine seasons. As a member of Altius, Andrew won prizes at chamber music competitions and toured internationally in Europe, Asia, and Australia. While in Altius, he also recorded three albums of classical, crossover, and contemporary repertoire.

Sean Neukom (viola)

Composer, instrumentalist, and producer Sean Neukom began his musical journey as a violin student at the age of three. Learning alongside his brother--taught by their father--the foundation was laid for an intense love, respect, and appreciation for music, making music as brothers, and for new music as their composer father would write works to accommodate their level. This love of music took Sean to Minot State University where as a violinist he received a Bachelor in Music degree. While at MSU Sean's musical curiosity led to the start of composition. At MSU, Sean composed for both the concert choir and the string ensemble. The latter for which a spatial work was written that had performers scattered across the room including trumpets in the scaffolds! Following Minot, Sean went on to the Cleveland Institute of Music to earn a Master of Music degree in violin performance.

Ryan Ash (cello)

Ryan Ash, cellist, earned his Bachelor of Music degree at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, studying cello with Brandon Vamos (of the twice Grammy-winning Pacifica Quartet) and piano with Dr. Yu-Chi Tai, and his Master of Music degree at the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University with Dr. Tanya Carey, former president of the SAA and with whom he continued long-term teacher training for four additional years. Ryan also counts Dr. Louis Bergonzi and Dr. Karen Hendricks (cello), Caroline Fraser (piano), and Melanie Ron (early childhood music) among his teaching mentors. He has performed in masterclasses for Steven Doane, Richard Aaron, David Halen, Amit Peled, John Sharp, Wendy Warner, the Arianna, Biava, and Shanghai String Quartets.

More Info

Beo String Quartet - web page