Best Wedding String Quartet in New Orleans

A member of the 5th House Ensemble, Sixto is a music and performing arts enthusiast. He is enjoying an active career as a performer, teacher, and composer, having concertized in Europe, the United States, and Mexico. Sixto Franco is passionate about chamber music and has had the honor to perform with Eighth Black Bird, International Chamber Artists, Symbiosis Ensemble in L.A., the Kaia String Quartet, the Chicago Chamber Music Festival, and the Chicago Chamber Orchestra. Sixto has appeared as a soloist with the Camerata Musicales in Spain, the Thornton Music School Chamber Orchestra, and the Chamber Orchestra of Salamanca, Spain. He has also served in the Santa Barbara Chamber Orchestra, the Barcelona Symphony, Chicago Chamber Orchestra, the Elgin Symphony, and the Chicago Philharmonic. Sixto and his wife Rachel, an amazing lighting designer, enjoy taking their two-year-old daughter, Odessa, to music, theater, and dance shows all over Chicago!

Based in New Orleans, Kurt Münstedt is an active violinist, music educator, and member of the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra since 2017.  He currently serves on the violin and chamber music faculty at the University of New Orleans.  A passionate chamber musician, Kurt is a founding and active member of the Radio Bird Quartet, Rogue Baroque, and the Lott String Quartet (currently quartet-in-residence at the University of New Orleans). During the summers, he performs at the Breckenridge Music Festival in Colorado.

Originally from Needham, Massachusetts, Mr. Münstedt holds a Bachelor of Music degree in violin and audio recording from the Cleveland Institute of Music and a Masters degree from Carnegie Mellon.  His principal teachers include Joel Smirnoff and Andres Cardenes.  He has performed with the Schleswig Holstein Festival Orchestra (Germany), Pacific Music Festival (Japan), and the Sebastians (NYC).  Mr. Münstedt received his Suzuki training under the guidance of Kimberly Meier-Sims, and teaches an enthusiastic studio of students from the front of his historic shotgun house in the Lower 7th Ward.

Rachel Hsieh is a cellist with the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra and a founding member of the New Orleans-based Lott String Quartet. She is also a member of the Father Carter String Quartet at Loyola University.
 

Ms. Hsieh has worked with numerous movie, television and recording artists, including Tyler Perry, Edgar Meyer, PJ Morton and Idina Menzel.  She has also appeared in television shows such as “NCIS: New Orleans” and “On Becoming a God in Central Florida.”  She is a multi-year winner of Gambit Magazine’s Best Chamber Music Performance.

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She has participated in numerous festivals and projects, including the Castleton Festival Orchestra with Lorin Maazel, the YouTube Symphony with Michael Tilson Thomas, the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, the Orquesta Sinfónica de Minería in Mexico City, the AIMS Festival Orchestra in Graz, Austria, and the National Repertory Orchestra.

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Ms. Hsieh is originally from Flint, Michigan. She holds a bachelor’s degree in cello performance at the University of Michigan, where she studied with Erling Blöndal Bengtsson. She was the recipient of the Gregor Piatigorsky Scholarship at the Peabody Conservatory, where she earned a Master’s Degree and a Performance Diploma under the tutelage of Alan Stepansky, former Associate Principal Cellist of the New York Philharmonic.

A native of Cape Cod, MA, violinist Benjamin Thacher resides in New Orleans and is a member of the Lott String Quartet and the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra. Mr. Thacher attended the New England Conservatory of Music, receiving a Bachelors degree in violin performance. He furthered his studies in the graduate program at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. His principal teachers include Donald Weilerstein, James Buswell, Ian Swensen, and Paul Biss. He also studied with Itzhak Perlman at the Perlman Music Program.

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Performing in concert halls around the globe, Mr. Thacher has soloed with the Nashua Symphony, Greater Marlboro Symphony, Dorchester Symphony, Cape Symphony, Boise Baroque Orchestra, and the Louisiana Philharmonic. As an orchestral leader, he was Concertmaster of the Louisiana Philharmonic, Associate Concertmaster of the Boise Philharmonic, Guest Concertmaster of the Auckland Philharmonia, and the West Australian Symphony.
 

Highly in demand as a violin teacher, Mr. Thacher’s students are frequently accepted into some of the finest music institutions and colleges around the country. His students have been frequent prize winners at local and regional competitions. Mr. Thacher was recently appointed to the violin faculty at the University of New Orleans, where he maintains a teaching studio. He also is on the faculty of the Greater New Orleans Youth Orchestra Program.

Praised by The Philadelphia Inquirer for his “glowing refinement,” violist Luke Fleming‘s performances have been described by The Strad as “confident and expressive…playing with uncanny precision,” and lauded by Gramophone for their “superlative technical and artistic execution.” Festival appearances include the Marlboro Music School and Festival, the Steans Institute at Ravinia, Perlman Music Program, the Norfolk and Great Lakes Chamber Music Festivals, the Melbourne Festival, Bravo!Vail, and Festival Mozaic. Formerly the violist of the internationally acclaimed Attacca Quartet, he has served as Artist-in-Residence for the Metropolitan Museum of Art and received the National Federation of Music Clubs Centennial Chamber Music Award. He was awarded First Prize at the Osaka International Chamber Music Competition and top prizes at the Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition.

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In 2015, Mr. Fleming became the Founding Artistic Director of both the Manhattan Chamber Players, a New York-based chamber music collective, and the Crescent City Chamber Music Festival.  He currently serves on the viola and chamber music faculty of the University of New Orleans School of the Arts, where he is a member of the Lott Quartet.  He is also a founding member of the Delaware-based Serafin Ensemble. He has performed as a guest artist with the Escher, Pacifica, Serafin, and Solera String Quartets, the Eroica, Lysander, and Gryphon Piano Trios, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Decoda, Ensemble Connect, Sejong Soloists, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, and the New York Classical Players, and has given masterclasses at UCLA, Louisiana State University, Ithaca College, Columbus State University, Syracuse University, Melbourne University, and the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts, among others. Mr. Fleming has served on the faculties of the Innsbrook Institute, Renova Music Festival, Festival del Lago, and Houston ChamberFest, and Fei Tian College and is Lecturer-in-Residence for the concert series Project: Music Heals Us.

Mr. Fleming holds the degrees of Doctor of Musical Arts, Artist Diploma, and Master of Music from the Juilliard School, a Postgraduate Diploma with Distinction from the Royal Academy of Music in London, and a Bachelor of Music summa cum laude from Louisiana State University. He is represented with the Manhattan Chamber Players by Arts Management Group.