[1] In 1989, at The Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, violinists Geoff Nuttall and Barry Shiffman, violist Lesley Robertson, and cellist Marina Hoover established the quartet.
They have won a Juno Award and a Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik for their EMI recording of Robert Schumann's quartets.
SLSQ has recorded four CDs for EMI (composed of quartets by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Schumann, Dmitri Shostakovich, and Osvaldo Golijov).
They have premiered works by John Adams (January 2009), Ezequiel Viñao (December 2009), Osvaldo Golijov, David Bruce (work for clarinet and string quartet, commissioned by Carnegie Hall), Derek Charke, Suzanne Hebert-Tremblay, Brian Current, Elizabeth Raum, and Marcus Goddard.
SLSQ have also collaborated with composers R. Murray Schafer (premiere of String Quartet 3, in 1994 and "Four-Forty" in 2002), Jonathan Berger (premiere of "Miracles and Mud" in 2001 and "The Bridal Canopy" in 2008), Christos Hatzis ("Awakenings," May 2005), and Roberto Sierra ("Songs from the Diaspora," February 2007).