The quartet, characterized by a spirit of musical adventure, plays a diverse repertoire sassy and serious, experimental and canonical, challenging and comfortable. Our mission is to bring new music to audiences of all kinds, in venues of all kinds. We present music in traditional and non-traditional settings, including teaching and interaction; we have played in concert halls, jazz clubs, and created interactive concerts for children. We are named after our first collaboration, on Vineet Shende’s piece Throw Down or Shut Up!, fittingly inspired by the music of Olivier Messiaen and James Brown.

John Gunther is a composer and multi-instrumentalist playing saxophones, clarinet, and flute. With a restless musical spirit, he explores all forms of jazz from traditional to avant-garde as well as classical, world, and electronic music. He has performed throughout the U.S., South America and Europe, in Carnegie Hall, in the middle of the ocean, and on the back of a truck. In addition to his jazz performance, John has appeared as a guest soloist with the Sinfonietta Paris Chamber Orchestra and the Carpe Diem String Quartet. In 2007 he founded the Boulder Laptop Orchestra (BLOrk) to explore the intersection of music, art, and technology. John is an Associate Professor and Director of the Thompson Jazz Studies Program at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Daphne Leong, with repertoire ranging from Bach to premieres of current music, has performed in the United States, Canada, England, Norway, the Netherlands, Romania, and Hong Kong. In addition to appearing as pianist and chamber musician, Leong is Associate Professor of Music Theory at the University of Colorado Boulder. Her publications focus on analysis and performance, rhythmic theory, and music since 1900; her book Performing Knowledge: Twentieth-Century Music in Analysis and Performance was published by Oxford University Press in 2019. Leong has served as elected Vice-President of the national Society for Music Theory; she received the 2013 Excellence in Teaching Award from the University of Colorado Boulder Faculty Assembly. She holds a Ph.D. (music theory), M.Mus. (piano performance), and M.A. (music theory) from the Eastman School of Music.

Patrick Sutton—award-winning guitarist, chamber musician and recording artist from Evergreen, Colorado—performs and teaches all over the world. Recent engagements and residencies include the Florida Guitar Foundation, Portland International Guitar Series, Shanghai Conservatory, University of Cape Town, the Biblioteca di Alessandria, Afghanistan National Institute of Music, and the Atlas Music Academy in Tunisia. Patrick was a featured artist at the 2016 Guitar Foundation of America Convention. He has served on the music faculty at Arkansas State University-Midsouth, Naropa University, the Lamont School of Music Summer Academy at the University of Denver and the University of Memphis; his principal teachers were Ricardo Iznaola and Jonathan Leathwood.

Michael Tetreault has performed domestically and abroad with the London Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic, Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal, Toronto Symphony, Colorado Symphony, Utah Symphony, Kansas City Symphony, Orchestre de Paris, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Roomful of Teeth, Quattro Mani, and Alarm Will Sound, among many others. He is currently a member of four professional orchestras in the Rocky Mountain region and is also part of the percussion faculty at the University of Colorado Boulder. Michael holds a Master of Music from the Royal Academy of Music in London, UK and a Bachelor of Music from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY.