What’s so special about the Parker Quartet?

How is it that a string quartet fresh out of the conservatory could become such a sensation so quickly, snaring the Cleveland Quartet Award - which is something like the Nobel Prize for string quartets - and last year’s Grammy for “Best Chamber Music Performance”? Are these kids really that good?

Well, based upon the group’s performance Wednesday night at Minneapolis’ Ted Mann Concert Hall, the answer is yes. It’s a group with four distinct personalities that makes some marvelous musical conversation, each contributing their own set of ideas and emotions.

And Wednesday’s program had plenty of emotional terrain to explore. Felix Mendelssohn’s sixth and final string quartet is a dark night of the soul that may have been the last work he completed. Mourning the loss of his sister and months from his own death, he created a work in which ghosts roam. As performed by the Parker Quartet, frantic anxiety gave way to despair, then resignation and, finally, a whispered farewell.

Also laden with emotion was the Third String Quartet of American composer Leon Kirchner. Written in 1966, this Pulitzer-winning piece employs a tape of electronic blips, bloops and beeps that often sound like the soundtrack to a vintage video game such as “Pac-Man” or “Space Invaders.” Entrusted with representing humanity in a debate with a machine, the Parker Quartet emphasized sorrow and brought urgency to a work that could have sounded archaic and quaint.

If it sounds like the group was intent upon dwelling in darkness, know that its members concluded the evening with one of the sunniest works in the string quartet repertoire, Antonin Dvorak’s “American” Quartet. Written in 1893 while the composer was vacationing in Spillville, Iowa, it opened up evocative musical vistas that would inspire Aaron Copland and others.

More than anything on the program, this demonstrated how individualistic yet well-blended the Parker Quartet can be, with first violinist Daniel Chong singing lead lines like a lyric soprano, cellist Kee-Hyun Kim exuding strength and depth, and the middle voices assertive and exciting in the hands of second violinist Karen Kim and violist Jessica Bodner.

FORT COLLINS — Newly minted Grammy Award winners, the Parker Quartet kicked off a trio of Colorado performances on Saturday at the University Center for the Arts in Fort Collins.

Its members - Daniel Chong and Karen Kim, violinists; Jessica Bodner, violist; and cellist Kee-Hyun Kim — all in their late-20s — performed three demanding works with the vigor and artistic veracity of more seasoned ensembles.

In Claude Debussy’s novel String Quartet in G minor, Op. 10, the foursome delivered technical exactitude without compromising the French composer’s bent toward colors, sensations and a looser form than that of his influential Germanic predecessors.

Throughout the four-movement quartet, Chong’s sure and lucid cues led the ensemble in an animated, remarkably cohesive interpretation of Debussy’s sometimes delicate, sometimes grandiose tonal textures and effects.

The quartet then deftly executed Leos Janacek’s singular sound world - comprising short musical ideas that pack an emotional punch - in his String Quartet No. 29 (”Intimate Letters”). Here, Bodner set the ever-quickening pace of the Czech composer’s passionate portrait of unrequited love.

Arguably saving the best for last, the extraordinarily gifted group elegantly navigated the magnificent heights and depths of Johannes Brahms’ String Quartet No. 2 in A minor, Op. 51. Recalling both Beethoven and Bach, the work is replete with intricate musical ideas and technical tricks … but the quartet tackled them all with fervor and aplomb.

In the Andante movement, especially, Chong shone in his introduction of the warm, soulful melody that overlay a tightly calibrated accompaniment by Bodner and Kim. Likewise, in the third movement that features a double canon, the cellist and second violinist held together beautifully in their variation on the minuetto theme, while Chong and Bodner played a different theme.

The brilliant, bursting Finale further demonstrated the palpable connection and close communication among the quartet members.

Their polished presence and fresh approach make them a formidable force already, and pave the way for even richer musical interpretations as they continue to mature as individuals and artists.