String Quartet No. 1 is a single-movement work composed in 1986-87 while I was an undergraduate composition student at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Completed in my senior year, the piece represents the culmination of study and musical thinking of a young composer: here, a larger scale piece (circa 16 minutes) in a well-known idiom, exploring dramatic intensity and contrast in a heavily chromatic, motivic, non-tonal environment. The somewhat darker colors that dominate the piece are emphasized by two solos: the viola (early in the work), and the cello (shortly before the conclusion). AR