Real Quiet is a three-man band dedicated to an exclusive repertoire of hard-edge acoustic and electric music created by today's leading composers. The three members—percussionist David Cossin, cellist Felix Fan and pianist Andrew Russo—are each highly accomplished soloists and chamber musicians whose careers have been dedicated to the advancement of contemporary music. Since their début in 2004, RQ has appeared in the USA, Europe, and Asia with premieres of works by numerous composers. Their first commercial recording, Tight Sweater, featured the works of Marc Mellits and was an NPR Pick of the Week.
Real Quiet's work with David Lang includes the 2006 world premiere of Work, a video installation by Suzanne Bocanegra with music by David Lang. "Work felt like a significant occasion…It's a piece somehow both vaporously subtle and emotionally powerful—the best kind of artistic effect." (LA Times). Lang then wrote RQ a triple concerto, Pierced, which subsequently had its premiere with the Munich Chamber Orchestra at the 2007 Adevantgarde Festival. Real Quiet recently toured Russia performing its own repertoire, as well as arrangements of Manorexia by Jim Thirlwell (Foetus) with Thirlwell on the sampler. They also gave the premiere of Gordon Chin's Uncertain Skies at the National Concert Hall in Taiwan and led a three-concert residency of Steve Reich's music (attended by the composer) in upstate New York. Another recent tour featured the world premiere at Philadelphia's Kimmel Center of Fear and Loathing, a new song cycle by Phil Kline based on the writings of Hunter S. Thompson. A joint commissioning project by La Jolla Music Society's Summerfest and the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival will result in new works written for Real Quiet by Marc Neikrug, Kaija Saariaho, Huang Ruo, and George Tsontakis.