The Laydeez Quartet, an ensemble comprising three Bienen School of Music alumnae and one current student, will appear on WFMT’s “Music in Chicago” program this Friday, June 17, at 12:00 noon (CDT).

Members of the Laydeez Quartet include violinists Susannah Foster (G15) and Sabrina Tabby (G16), violist Tara Lynn Ramsey (11), and cellist Riana Anthony, a master’s student of Professor Hans Jensen.

The Laydeez Quartet won the Bienen School’s first-annual Dover Quartet Competition, held May 12, 2016, in the Mary B. Galvin Recital Hall. Judges for the competition included Dover Quartet members – violinists Joel Link and Bryan Lee, violist Milena Pajaro-van de Stadt and cellist Camden Shaw – along with Frank Babbitt, violist for the Lyric Opera Orchestra.  

The Dover Quartet recently completed their first year as quartet-in-residence at the Bienen School of Music. The three-year residency is supported by a generous grant from the Elizabeth F. Cheney Foundation. In addition to presenting three public recitals, quartet members led master classes and coached Bienen students during each quarter of the academic year.

Established only this past September, the Laydeez Quartet has worked intensively with members of the Dover Quartet as well as Desirée Ruhstrat of the Lincoln Trio and Mathias Tacke of the former Vermeer Quartet. In February 2016, the quartet was invited to perform Witold Lutoslawski’s string quartet in a masterclass with acclaimed composer and conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen at Chicago’s Symphony Center.

When not rehearsing or performing together as an ensemble, the four women maintain active schedules as soloists and chamber musicians. Foster and Ramsey are co-concertmasters of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago. Tabby will begin a contract with the Lincoln Center Stage, a chamber music concert series on the Holland America Cruise Line MS Eurodam, in September. Anthony represented the Bienen School at the Kennedy Center’s Conservatory Project in Washington, DC, and next year she will be a featured soloist with the Northwestern University Symphony Orchestra as the 2016 Concerto Competition winner.


  • Hans Jensen
  • Desiree Ruhstrat
  • WFMT
  • Dover Quartet