The LSU School of Music pulled some strings and arranged a collaboration with popular classical music group The Attacca Quartet. With a mini-residency beginning yesterday and a concert tonight in the LSU School of Music Recital Hall, the Attacca Quartet will be in Baton Rouge for an eventful week. 
Formed in 2003 at The Juilliard School by undergraduate students as part of required class work, The Attacca Quartet won top prizes through the musical competition circuit. In 2007, the quartet made its professional debut as part of the Artists International Winners Series in Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall.  From 2011 to 2013, it served as the Juilliard Graduate Resident String Quartet. 
These days, the quartet spends most of its time traveling for concerts and residencies through the U.S. and internationally.
The members of the quartet have roots all over, such as New York, Japan, Louisiana and Virginia. Amy Schroeder and Keiko Tokunaga are the violinists of the group, with Luke Fleming on viola and Andrew Yee on cello. 
Despite the uncertainty of a freelance profession, the four have worked together to cultivate a successful career. 
“I think all of us, at a fairly early point in our college careers, decided in an ideal world what would we would have liked to do is play chamber music professionally,” Fleming said. “So we all kind of strived towards that goal.”
Fleming attended Baton Rouge High School and the University for his undergraduate degree before attending the Royal Academy of Music in London and returning to the states to study at Juilliard. Being an alumnus of the University has made this mini-residency and concert that much more special for Fleming. 
“We got a call from our management saying that LSU really wanted us down to do a concert and a mini-residency and I was of course stoked because it’s something I had been hoping for some time, being an alum,”
Fleming said. 
The quartet will give master classes to University music students as well as master classes individual to their instrument and offer private lessons to
students. 
The teaching doesn’t stop on campus. Fleming stopped by the Louisiana Youth Orchestra’s rehearsal Monday to speak to the kids because that’s where he had his first real musical experience. 
All four members are looking forward to the opportunity to help aspiring musicians.
“Generally, when universities have a string quartet come in to do a residency like this, it’s an older, longer-established group, but to have a younger group come in, we’re more in context of those in school,” Fleming said. “We can tell them a little about professional development and how to get themselves where they want to get to.”
At the concert, three lesser-known and diverse pieces will be performed. As part of a project  the quartet has been doing for the last few years, it will be playing one of classical composer Joseph Haydn’s 68-string quartets. Out of the 68, only about eight to 10 of them are frequently played.
“The connection we’re able to create with the audience and the approach we take to programming and the excitement of our concerts is something that’s more unique and something people really respond to,” Fleming said. 
The concert will be tonight from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. in the LSU School of Music Recital Hall. Tickets are $10 for the public and $5 for LSU faculty, staff, students and seniors.  
You can reach Sadie McDade on Twitter @sadiemcdadie.