Ion Zanca, founder of the Dallas String Quartet
Ethan Good
Members of the Dallas String Quartet include Ion Zanca, Valory Hight, Melissa Priller
and Young Heo. (Not pictured in order.) Zanca is front, foreground.
Kathy tran
The Grammy-nominated Dallas String Quartet is a font of false impressions.
“It’s kind of funny,” says founder and violist Ion Zanca. “We’re a Dallas quartet, but we have six or seven people and almost nobody’s from Dallas.”
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The quartet members all live in D-FW now, but Zanca grew up in Romania while the other musicians hail from South Korea, Chicago and Virginia. In addition to Zanca, the core players are violinists Melissa Priller and Valory Hight, and bassist Young Heo.
But what really throws people is “string quartet” – a phrase that conjures up genteel, tuxedo-clad musicians on folding chairs playing Shostakovich at your cousin’s wedding.
The group has been there, done that. In December, it played that role perfectly as a Bridgerton-style string quartet during the launch of the Netflix House at the Galleria Dallas.
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But more often than not, the DSQ is a shape-shifting act putting on big, high-energy productions like its Christmas concert in December at the Winspear Opera House. At some shows, it morphs into an electric sextet performing tunes by Guns N’ Roses and Katy Perry: “Bach meets Bon Jovi” is the group’s pet marketing phrase.
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In November, it scored a Grammy nomination in the new age/ambient/chant album for According to the Moon, an electronic-tinged collaboration with East Coast singer-composer Cheryl B. Engelhardt. This month, the DSQ released Gratitude, a meditative classical album of original songs and spiritual standards.
I spoke with Zanca by phone from his home in Lakewood. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
You didn’t win the Grammy in February, but you got to go to the awards ceremony in L.A. What was that like?
We got to do the whole red carpet, which was surreal. I mean, you’re a string quartet and you’re walking next to Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars. The girls in the group were really excited to meet Paris Hilton. I didn’t know enough about Paris Hilton to be excited.
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You formed DSQ in 2007 while in grad school at Southern Methodist University. What were the early days like?
I came from Romania to attend Louisiana State University … then moved to SMU and studied with Ellen Rose, who was the principal violist of the Dallas Symphony. At first, the Dallas String Quartet was just something fun to do, to choose our own repertoire and be more independent. We played the typical Dallas parties … and I just couldn’t understand, why would you hire a string quartet if you don’t want to listen to them?
In my naiveté, I thought people weren’t hearing us because we’re not amplified. So we got electric violins and viola and cello and we started offering an electric version of the quartet. Then we did shows at NorthPark Center, playing songs by the Beatles and the Verve and ’70s and ’80s songs, and the response was unbelievable.
Now we’ve gotten hundreds of millions of streams on Pandora and Spotify, which is insane for a string quartet, you know what I mean?
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What was the inspiration behind Romani: The Untold Story, the 2024 DSQ album that hit No. 1 on Billboard’s classical chart?
My ethnicity is Romani, and I wanted to write about the Romani people who suffered during the Holocaust. My grandfather used to tell me these horrible stories about Romani gypsy people sent to concentration camps during World War II. And I wanted my son to know this history.
I started looking into it, interviewing experts, and I wrote the album based on all these stories. It became a huge production recorded in London at Abbey Road Studios with the London Symphony and Romani people from around the world.
You described your big Christmas show in December at the Winspear as “very stressful.” Tell me more about that.
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We do a lot of touring, but ironically, we hadn’t done any big concerts in Dallas. So my goal was to create our own concert for the city, something like the major Christmas events in cities around Europe that involve music, dance, choir, all of those things.
I knew it was gonna be hard – I don’t have expertise in marketing – but one by one, we sold 1,200 tickets. I still have a little PTSD because of it. But now that I have a bit more experience, we will do the Christmas concert again this year with the goal of raising enough money to donate 100 violins to kids in need who love music. I think that would be really cool for the community.
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What was the goal behind the new DSQ album Gratitude and its meditative sound?
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This was a really hard, productive year. … You achieve things you worked your whole life for, things that you think will make you so happy, but then you realize it’s not necessarily any different. It feels good for a week, and then you’re like, “OK. Now what?”
I just wanted to stop and make something beautiful and simple that’s not pretentious. I’m not trying to impress the Grammy community. I’m not trying to impress anybody. I’m just trying to make something that grounds me whenever I feel lost, because I think there’s something about simplicity that can resonate with everyone.