Terra Quartet Named Winner of 2025 Naumburg Chamber Music Competition

Written by Chantal Gapato  |  December 12, 2025

The Terra Quartet has been named the winner of the 2025 Naumburg Chamber Music Competition, held on 8 and 9 December at the Morgan Library and Museum in New York City. The final round featured three ensembles: the Terra Quartet, Trio Eris and the Kodachrome Saxophone Quartet.

As first prize recipients, the Terra Quartet will receive 15,000 dollars, recital engagements at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and Carnegie Hall, a commissioned work and a recording of the commissioned piece.

This year’s jury consisted of David Geber, Charles Neidich, Anton Nel, Nicholas Mann, Todd Phillips, Lucy Shelton and Mark Steinberg.

The quartet is formed by violinists Harriet Langley and Amelia Dietrich, violist Chih-Ta Chen and cellist Audrey Chen. The ensemble recently secured second prize at both the 2025 Bordeaux International String Quartet Competition and the 2025 Wigmore Hall International String Quartet Competition.

The group previously earned the grand prize and gold medal at the 2022 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition and received the Christine and David Anderson Career Development Prize at the 2022 Banff International String Quartet Competition. In 2023 it placed second at the Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition and third at the Osaka International Chamber Music Competition.

The Terra Quartet is currently the fellowship quartet-in-residence at Yale University. It was also the 2024 to 2025 Ernst Stiefel quartet-in-residence at the Caramoor Center for Music and Arts, where it curated programmes built around the string quartets of Benjamin Britten. The ensemble additionally served as the Project Music Heals Us Arts Leadership Ensemble in 2023 to 2024.

Organised by the Walter W. Naumburg Foundation, the Naumburg Competition is held annually and rotates among violin, chamber music, cello, piano and saxophone. The most recent chamber music winner prior to this edition was the Merz Trio in 2021.

The 2026 competition will focus on the violin and will run from 27 October to 1 November 2026.

Photo courtesy of Il Sophie Kaye Photography