The String Quartet No. 15 in E-flat minor, Op.
 144, was Dmitri Shostakovich's last quartet.
 It was completed on 17 May 1974 and premiered in Leningrad by the Taneiev Quartet on 15 November (one of only two Shostakovich quartets not premiered by the Beethoven Quartet).
 Like most of the composer's late works, it is an introspective meditation on mortality.
The Orford String Quartet was a Canadian string quartet active from 1965 through 1991.
 They came to be the leading string quartet in Canada, and one of the finest in the world.
 "For 26 years, the Orford String Quartet was the best of its breed in Canada."
The String Quartet No. 3 in E-flat minor, Op. 30, by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, was composed in 1876, and is the last of his three String Quartets.
 It was written as a memorial for Ferdinand Laub.
 (The date upon the manuscript is early February 1876.)
The String Quartet No. 6, Sz.
 114, BB 119, was the final string quartet that Béla Bartók wrote before his death.
 It was begun in August 1939 in Saanen, Switzerland, where Bartók was a guest of his patron, the conductor Paul Sacher.
 Shortly after he completed the Divertimento for String Orchestra on the 17th, he started on a commission for his friend, the violinist Zoltán Székely.
 Székely was acting as intermediary for the "New Hungarian Quartet", who had given the Budapest premiere of the String Quartet No. 5.
 With the outbreak of World War II and his mother's illness, Bartók returned to Budapest, where the quartet was finished in November.
 After his mother's death, Bartók decided to leave with his family for the United States.
 Due to the difficulties of the war, communication between Bartók and Székely was difficult, and the quartet was not premiered until 20 January 1941, when the Kolisch Quartet, to whom the work is dedicated, gave its premiere at the Town Hall in New York City.
Vitamin String Quartet (VSQ) is a musical group from Los Angeles, California, that is widely known for its series of tribute albums to rock and pop acts.
 Their albums are released through Vitamin Records and primarily performed by a string quartet, though other instruments have been used.
 "Vitamin String Quartet is about applying rock n' roll attitude to classical technique," says Tom Tally, a violist and arranger who has performed on and produced over fifty Vitamin String Quartet albums.
Ezequiel Viñao (born 1960 in Buenos Aires) is an Argentine-American composer.
 He emigrated to the United States in 1980 and studied at the Juilliard School.
 His compositions include "La Noche de las Noches" (1989) for string quartet and electronics, which won First Prize at UNESCO's Latin-American Rostrum of Composers in 1993; six "Études" (1993) for piano solo, which were awarded a Kennedy Center Friedheim Award in 1995; a second string quartet "The Loss and the Silence" (2004), commissioned by the Juilliard String Quartet; "The Wanderer" (2005) for a cappella voices, commissioned by Chanticleer and Chicago a cappella, and "Sirocco Dust" (2009), commissioned by the Library of Congress for the St. Lawrence String Quartet.
 He currently resides in New York City.
The String Quintet in E-flat major, Op.
 97, B. 180, was composed by Antonín Dvořák during the summer he spent in Spillville, Iowa in 1893.
 It is a "Viola Quintet" in that it is scored for string quartet with an extra viola.
 It was completed in just over a month, immediately after he wrote his "American" String Quartet.
 Like the Quartet, the Quintet finely captures the inflection of Dvořák's Bohemian idiom with American inspirations.
 The Quintet was premiered by the Kneisel Quartet in New York 13 January 1894 along with the second performance of the Quartet and very favorably reviewed, as comparable to Mozart.
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky ( ; Russian: Пётр Ильи́ч Чайко́вский ; 25 April/7 May 1840 – 25 October/6 November 1893), often anglicized as Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky, was a Russian composer of the romantic period, some of whose works are among the most popular music in the classical repertoire.
 He was the first Russian composer whose music made a lasting impression internationally, bolstered by his appearances as a guest conductor in Europe and the United States.
 Tchaikovsky was honored in 1884, by Emperor Alexander III, and awarded a lifetime pension.
The Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg published four string quartets, distributed over his lifetime.
 These were the String Quartet No. 1 in D minor, Op. 7 (1905), String Quartet No. 2 in F sharp minor, Op. 10 (1908), String Quartet No. 3, Op. 30 (1927), and the String Quartet No. 4, Op. 37 (1936).
The Jasper String Quartet is a professional string quartet based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
 Currently the Ensemble in Residence at Temple University's Center for Gifted Young Musicians, the quartet was previously the Quartet in Residence at Oberlin Conservatory (from 2010-2012).
 Formed in 2004 while its members were in school at Oberlin Conservatory, the quartet completed string quartet master's programs at Rice University (2006-2008) and Yale University (2008-2010).
 The group's primary mentors are James Dunham, Norman Fischer and the Tokyo String Quartet.
 In 2010, they joined the roster of Astral Artists.

Question: The composer of The String Quartet No. 3 in E-flat minor was awarded a lifetime pension by what emperor?
Answer: Emperor Alexander III