Vitamin String Quartet to perform Friday at the Englert

The music industry has a long and storied tradition of taking original hits and transforming them into something else entirely.

Who can forget Pat Boone, who topped the pop charts with his ultra-sanitized versions of Little Richard songs? Or 101 Strings, who turned the honky-tonk hits of Hank Williams into uplifting elevator music? Or Alvin & The Chipmunks, whose squeaky-clean covers of Lipps Inc.’s “Funkytown” and Sir Mix-A-Lot’s “Baby Got Back” will live on in infamy?

Enter Vitamin String Quartet, a musical project that reimagines contemporary music through the lens of classical instrumentation. While the quartet has covered at least a few of the same artists as 101 Strings, the similarities end there. The group doesn't simply transpose pop melodies for strings; they reconstruct the entire song, bringing out nuances that might go overlooked in the original versions.

“We specialize in translating pop, rock and hip-hop into what might sound like Baroque or Romantic pieces of music, but that are, from our perspective, a much more immediate version of that,” VSQ creative director James Curtiss said in a recent interview. “It’s still acoustic, but we want it to sound visceral and immediate and modern. We don't want to make music that just sounds like it's going to be played in the background.”

The formula is paying off in a big way. According to Curtiss, the quartet’s rotating lineup has recorded literally thousands of pop, rock and hip-hop songs, from Bjork to BLACKPINK, Kanye West to My Chemical Romance. In 2024, their album of Taylor Swift covers hoisted the reigning queen of pop’s music to No. 1 on the Billboard classical charts.

The ensemble released an album of Frank Ocean material, “VSQ Performs Frank Ocean,” last April, followed up with a six-song EP, “VSQ Performs the Hits of 2025,” which features covers of recent hits by Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars, Sabrina Carpenter, Bad Bunny, Tate McRae, Gracie Abrams and Alex Warren before releasing yet another album, “Vitamin String Quartet Performs BLACKPINK,” in August. Then on Oct. 3, the group released yet another album, “VSQ Performs Billie Eilish,” followed in November with the EP, “VSQ Performs KPop Demon Hunters.”

Meanwhile, VSQ’s ability to bridge the gap between disparate genres has attracted the attention of television producers and music supervisors. Their recordings have found their way into popular TV shows like “Bridgerton,” “Westworld” and “Gossip Girl,” each placement carefully chosen to enhance the narrative moments they accompany.

And, in a case of life imitating art, the Vitamin String Quartet recordings used in wedding scenes on “Gossip Girl” and “Modern Family” have also been used for real-life walks down the aisle.

"Sometimes they aren’t allowed to use a pop piece in a church,” said Curtiss, “or they want to have something that feels very classical and has the romantic kind of setting that Vitamin String Quartet would provide. So instead of having Handel or Bach or something like that, they want to use something that they know, something that they share, something that's “their” song."

VSQ’s journey began in 1999, but it wasn't until years later that the project adopted its current name. What started as a series of studio recordings has since grown into a collective of artists, producers and performers.

"The people that preceded us felt that a quartet was not enough, so they would do certain studio trickery and sometimes add more instrumentation,” Curtiss explained. “When we came in, we felt there was no reason to, for lack of a better term, fake it. You don't need a lot of layers, you don't need a lot of studio trickery. You don't need to add an electric guitar, or electronics of any kind. You don't need any of that. You just need four players playing it authentically.”

Meanwhile, for the shifting lineup of musicians who bring Vitamin String Quartet’s music out on the road, it can be an entirely different experience than what they’re used to.

“We give them an opportunity to solo and vamp, and that's not something that they were trained or encouraged to do,” Curtiss said. “To be part of an orchestra, or even if you get into certain smaller ensembles, there’s not a lot of room for improvisation. But a lot of our players have got more going on than just classical music, and it's great to work with people who, when you tell them to kind of cut loose, they can — or are very willing to try — as opposed to being stuck with their noses in a book.”

While four sets of strings remain VSQ’s stock in trade, they’ve also been known to collaborate with outside artists. This open-minded approach to musical genres has led to some surprising connections.

"People in the heavy metal arena, especially in the early days, were the most inclined to give us their vote of confidence,” Curtiss said. “Metallica has used some of our music to warm up for their shows, and Mastodon has done the same. And then on the flipside, there was Sabrina Carpenter, who’s probably the biggest pop artist in the world right now outside of Taylor Swift. She heard our take on one of her songs and jumped on TikTok to give it a thumbs up."

This kind of recognition from mainstream artists has proven invaluable in an age where social media is a crucial tool for marketing and audience engagement. When it comes to consuming music, this is a drastically different world than it was back in 1999.

"When digital marketing came along, that was around the time that we came up with the name Vitamin String Quartet and fixed it to the series,” Curtiss said. “Because by that point, there was already a pretty massive catalog of recordings with no real connective tissue. And concurrent with that, we were looking at it as a platform to turn this into a more active project that goes beyond just the studio recordings. We wanted to put people on a stage, to put people in front of a camera, all of those things.”

The shift to digital platforms allows VSQ to reach a global audience, far beyond what would have been possible in the days of physical album sales. It has also led to some unexpected viral moments, including a bit of reverse appropriation from none other than the subject of the group’s newest album.

“A couple years ago, Billie Eilish used one of our pieces of music on a TikTok video,” said Curtiss, “and that gave us a big, big boost. So it does happen. I just wish,” he added with a laugh, “it would happen more frequently.”