Diderot String Quartet

Adriane Post - Paul Dwyer - Kyle Miller - Johanna Novom

Diderot String Quartet—Diderot String Quartet—named after the eighteenth-century French philosopher and Boccherini enthusiast Denis Diderot—brings a fresh approach to works of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The Wall St Journal called their performance “emotional, riveting, and ultimately cathartic”. Diderot came together in 2012, after having first met at Oberlin Conservatory and The Juilliard School. The four musicians share a background in historical performance and a passion for the string quartet genre; they found the thrill of exploring the quartet repertoire on period instruments to be irresistible. 

Recent and upcoming engagements for Diderot String Quartet include Chamber Music Pittsburgh, Santa Fe Pro Musica, Lincoln Friends of Chamber Music (NE), Chamber Music Corvallis (Corvallis, OR), Pegasus Early Music / NYS Baroque, Connecticut Early Music Festival, Friends of Chamber Music Vancouver and Early Music Vancouver, Early Music Society of the Islands (Victoria, BC), Belvedere Series (VA), Helicon Foundation (NYC), Music in the Somerset Hills (Bernardsville, NJ), Rockefeller University’s Tri-I Noon Recital Series (NYC), Carmel Bach Festival (CA), Electric Earth Concerts (Peterborough, NH), The Crypt Sessions (NYC), and Music Before 1800 in New York. Diderot has also been featured in performance at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Toledo Museum of Art, and the Morgan Library in New York.

Diderot String Quartet served as Quartet-in-Residence at Washington National Cathedral for five seasons, and served as guest faculty for Oberlin’s Baroque Performance Institute. The quartet commissioned and premiered Small Infinities, a new work for gut strings from composer Lembit Beecher, and collaborates frequently with internationally acclaimed artists, including Jesse Blumberg, Dashon Burton, David Breitman, Avi Stein, and Harry Bicket. Diderot has a forthcoming album of string quartets by Haydn (op. 20, nos. 2 and 4).

Adriane Post’s baroque violin playing has been described as “exquisite” by The New York Times. Leader of Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra and founding member of ACRONYM Ensemble and Diderot String Quartet, Adriane has served as concertmaster of the Washington National Cathedral Orchestra, and appeared leading The Thirteen, Seraphic Fire, and as Associate Concertmaster with Bach Collegium San Diego. She has performed with English Concert, Apollo's Fire, Handel + Haydn Society, Trinity Wall Street Baroque Orchestra, Four Nations Ensemble, Newberry Consort, Pegasus Early Music, Les Délices, and Carmel Bach Festival, among others. Adriane received her BM from Oberlin Conservatory, where she studied with Marilyn McDonald and discovered a love for the baroque violin. She received her MM from The Juilliard School’s Historical Performance program, where she studied with Monica Hugget and Cynthia Roberts. Adriane has been a guest teacher and coach at Oberlin's BPI, Northwestern University, De Paul University, The Smithsonian Institute and Cincinnati Conservatory . Based in Boston, Adriane was born and raised in Vermont.

Born in England and raised in New Hampshire, violinist Johanna Novom developed a passion for chamber music soon after she began lessons at the ripe old age of 10. After completing degrees in violin and Historical Performance at Oberlin Conservatory in 2007, she was named a first-prize winner in the American Bach Soloists International Young Artists Competition, and began a fruitful tenure as Associate Concertmaster of Apollo’s Fire. Following a year-long fellowship with the Yale Baroque Ensemble, she quickly became a sought-after collaborator in the New York City early music community. A new core member of Tafelmusik in Toronto, and a member of Diderot String Quartet and ACRONYM, Johanna also performs regularly with the Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra, Carmel Bach Festival Orchestra, Trinity Wall Street Baroque Orchestra, Handel & Haydn Society, the Sebastians, and TENET, among others. She has toured internationally with multiple ensembles, performing in venues such as Wigmore Hall, Château de Versailles, Teatro Real de Madrid, Royal Concertgebouw, Carnegie Hall, Tanglewood, and BBC Proms. Johanna’s playing can be heard on recordings with ACRONYM (Olde Focus), Nathalie Stutzmann & Orfeo 55 (Deutsche Grammophon), Boston Early Music Festival (Erato and CPO) and Apollo’s Fire (AVIE), including the recent Grammy Award-winning Songs of Orpheus with Karim Sulayman.

Violist Kyle Miller made his concerto debut in 2005 with the Reading (Pennsylvania) Symphony Orchestra as ‘the dog’ in P.D.Q. Bach’s Canine Cantata, Wachet Arf! After that watershed performance, Kyle went on to study at the New England Conservatory, the Eastman School of Music, and The Juilliard School, where he received Master of Music degrees in both viola performance and historical performance. A member of ACRONYM and Diderot String Quartet, Kyle also has appeared onstage with A Far Cry, the American Classical Orchestra, Apollo's Fire, the Clarion Orchestra, the English Concert, Handel and Haydn Society, the Knights, New York Baroque Incorporated, Opera Lafayette, the Sebastians, Seraphic Fire, Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, Teatro Nuovo, TENET, The Thirteen, Trinity Baroque Orchestra, Upper Valley Baroque Orchestra, and the Washington National Cathedral Baroque Orchestra. Kyle performs regularly at the Carmel Bach Festival and the Staunton Music Festival; and as a member of Diderot String Quartet, he has served as a guest artist and coach at Oberlin College's Baroque Performance Institute. In 2017 and 2018, Kyle wore a wig and frock coat on Broadway, where he performed in a run of Claire van Kampen's play Farinelli and the King. Kyle’s primary teachers include Hsin-Yun Huang, Monica Huggett, Cynthia Roberts, Carol Rodland, and Steven Tenenbom. In his spare time, Kyle enjoys playing card and board games and eating pizza by the slice.

German-American cellist Paul Dwyer enjoys a varied career as a musician and beyond. He has served as tenured Assistant Principal cellist of Lyric Opera of Chicago, Principal cellist of Music of the Baroque, and is a founding member of the Diderot String Quartet and ACRONYM. He has served on the faculty of Notre Dame University and Oberlin Conservatory’s Baroque Performance Institute, among others. Paul was born in Munster, Indiana, but spent the most formative years of his life (according to Freud) in Vienna, where he decided to play the double bass, but was told he’s too small.  At age eight his family moved to Munich, where Paul spent most of his time playing soccer, running subversive school newspapers and transcribing Metallica songs for a heavy metal cello quartet he formed with his best friends.  In 12th grade, he made his opera debut singing the role of Polyphemus in Handel's Acis and Galatea. Paul strove to get better at the cello and learn more stuff at Oberlin Conservatory (Bachelor of Music), Juilliard (Masters of Music in historical performance) and the University of Michigan (Master of Music & Doctor of Musical Arts).  He also spent a year back in good old Europe as a Fulbright Fellow in Amsterdam, delving into contemporary music with Frances-Marie Uitti and baroque cello with Anner Byslma. In 2023 he completed an MBA at University of Chicago Booth School of Business.