For more than five years, Contemporary Productions has booked Project String Quartet as the live chamber music element inside their larger productions. It is a partnership built on one shared standard: when the room calls for strings, the strings have to be right.
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Our Collaborator
Contemporary Productions was founded in 1968 by Steve Schankman and Irv Zuckerman, and is one of the longest-running event and entertainment production companies in the Midwest. Over the course of more than fifty years, the company has produced concerts, corporate programs, civic events, and private productions across the country, headquartered in St. Louis with additional offices in Los Angeles, Tampa, and Nashville.
Today the company operates across three closely connected disciplines: event management, technical production, and entertainment booking. That integrated approach is what sets them apart in the St. Louis market. A client can come to Contemporary Productions with the shell of an idea and walk out with a complete program, from creative design through logistics, staging, and talent.
When a production needs live classical strings as part of that talent mix, Project String Quartet is the ensemble they call.
The Partnership
How Project String Quartet fits into a professional production toolkit.
Contemporary Productions has been booking Project String Quartet for over five years. In that time we have become a dependable option inside their toolkit, the ensemble their producers reach for when a client wants live classical strings with a polished, camera-ready presentation. Most of that work is not public facing, and we keep it that way.
Production companies operate under tight timelines, shifting run-of-show documents, and last-minute adjustments. That is the environment Project String Quartet was built for. Our players are conservatory trained and comfortable reading from a stand at a morning load-in, pivoting to a revised cue at noon, and playing a clean one-hour set that evening.
For their clients, the value is simpler. Having a conservatory-trained quartet on call means a producer can promise live strings without caveats. No rehearsal-day surprises. Project String Quartet shows up with the arrangements prepared, the tuxes pressed, and the sightlines studied.
Event Categories
A sampling of the types of events we support inside the Contemporary Productions catalog.
Cocktail-hour prelude sets, seated-dinner ambient music, and custom arrangements for ceremonial moments. We tailor the repertoire to the room, from contemporary pop arrangements to classical programs that match a black-tie tone.
Pre-show hospitality suites, sponsor lounges, and post-concert receptions where a string quartet sets the tone before a larger act takes the stage. Low setup footprint, fast strike, and a repertoire that reads elegant without competing with the headline event.
Invitation-only gatherings where the host wants live chamber music as part of a fully produced evening. These events are confidential by design, and we are trusted to perform, pack up, and leave without a footprint.
Anniversaries, grand openings, and activation events where live strings add a layer of warmth that recorded audio cannot match. We work from the production team's creative brief and arrive with music that fits the story.
Working From a Creative Brief
Hans Zimmer wrote this for Inception. It is the sort of thing we build when a production team hands us a brief rather than a song list: four players holding tension the way a score does, sized to a room instead of a soundtrack.
Hans Zimmer · Inception · Under two minutes
Why Production Companies Choose Us
Whether you are a production company, an in-house corporate events team, or a private host working with a producer, we are set up to slot cleanly into your run-of-show. Send us the brief and the date and we will respond within 24 hours.
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