“You can feel how passionate they are about playing String Quartet“ 

…says Valentin Erben (Alban Berg Quartett), the initiator of the MERITO Award which is being awarded every four years. Unlike other classical competitions the musicians are not aware of them being rated by a high profile jury throughout one whole year. During this long period of time, the ensemble proves its artistic level „unobserved“. Part of the jury is e.g. Veronika Hagen (Hagen Quartet), Mathieu Herzog (formerly Quatuor Ébène) and Irvine Arditti (Arditti Quartet).

„Furthermore (…) also the human warmth and charisma which distinguishes these four young people was crucial for our decision. It was never about showing off, but about a musical matter of the heart.“

For the Leonkoro Quartet, this surprising award marks a particularly beautiful ending of a very successful year.

The MERITO String Instruments Trust will now support the ensemble for four years with e.g. the allocation of a commissioned composition which will be premiered at the Wiener Konzerthaus.

!!Congratulations!! 

From this season onwards Quatuor Ébène & Belcea Quartet will share a joint series at the Vienna Konzertaus.

In August & September 2022, Quatuor Ébène will give 4 concerts at the International Beethovenfest Bonn, including concerts with students from their university class in Munich as well as with friends and long-time companions such as Martin Fröst and Nicolas Altstadt.

In their hometown will present their œuvre to the on-site audience as well as to the radio audience in a multitude of concerts during the next 3 seasons.

“With her wonderfully refined ear for the score’s textures and colours” Ariane Matiakh concludes her 21/22 season at the BBC PROMS, listen here.

Read the full Guardian review here.

Shortly after the jubilation over the many prizes at the Wigmore Hall International String Quartet Competition, the triumph at the Quatuor à Bordeaux Competition followed and, as all good things apparently come in threes, today, just one week later, the Leonkoro Quartet is appointed BBC New Generation Artists! The four Berlin-based musicians will be part of the scheme from 2022-2024.

Just one month after their great success at the International Wigmore Hall String Quartet Competition (1st prize & 9 special prizes), the Leonkoro Quartet is celebrating another major triumph. On Saturday night they were awarded 1st prize at the Quatuor à Bordeaux Competition. They convinced not only the jury of their talent, but also the audience: in addition to 1st prize, the Leonkoro Quartet returned to Berlin with the audience prize and the young audience prize as well.

With immediate effect we will be representing the wonderful Anja Bihlmaier in Germany and Austria. Welcome, dear Anja!

What a week and what an evening for the Leonkoro Quartet at the Wigmore Hall International String Competition. With an incredibly intense and virtuoso Beethoven Razumovsky No. 3, the four Berlin based musicians crowned their competition week. Our heartfelt congratulations for winning 1st prize and the almost countless special prizes they were honoured with yesterday (April 10th, 2022).

Confirmation of an artistic path of opening – Music Director Daniel Cohen and General Manager Karsten Wiegand to continue their work at the Darmstadt Theater.

We are shocked, dismayed and deeply saddened by the attack on Ukraine and share the pain Alexander Melnikov feels when writing for his audience today:

“It’s hard to imagine anyone further away from politics than I am. I also hate all pre-concert speeches.

But this morning – which I can call the worst morning of my life – I had a knot in my stomach that would prevent me from going on stage unless I can position myself clearly in front of you. Therefore I ask for 2 minutes of your attention:

Our civilization is in bad shape. [….] However, we all have our ‘red lines’. The beginning of a war must be the reddest of all red lines for everyone.

Of course, it is normal to say that I or millions of other Russians have nothing to do with this war. True, I haven’t lived there for many years and I definitely never voted for Putin or his party. If anything, I’m furious with them for making me feel guilty about being Russian. A feeling that has been with me for as long as I can remember.

But that’s not how things work. I feel responsible for this war. Neither I nor my countrymen have done enough to stop it.

It’s happening now that we’re all sitting here in the concert hall. People are dying in a criminal war for no reason.

When I look at humanity, I am infinitely sad. Shouldn’t we fear for our very survival? If we don’t survive, we will also lose Bach, Leonardo, Einstein, Newton or Pushkin. I don’t understand why we allow people like Putin or Trump to do this to our civilization.”

February 24th 2022

For their complete recording of Beethoven’s String Quartets – “Beethoven Around the World” – Quatuor Ébène has been awarded the Victoire de la musique classique in the recording category (2021).

The Quartet is to establish a new String Quartet class at the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich (HMTM) from 2021/22 onwards. Congratulation!

With Johannes Debus another conductor is enriching our artists list. The Music Director of the Canadian Opera Company perceives it as very rewarding to have one foot on each continent.

He sees himself as a universalist, equally at home in Monteverdi, the Viennese School, Janáček, and the 20th-century repertoire. “I wouldn’t give up any of this musical variety,” Debus says. “If the boundaries of my language are the boundaries of my world, then every new piece is a passage to somewhere new.”

We are delighted to represent him for opera and concert in Europe, starting immediately.

Choc de l’année 2020 of the Classica Magazine for „Beethoven Around the World”

The Schumann Quartet encounters Schubert with the String Quartet No. 6, D 74, the Quartettsatz, and the String Quartet No. 13, ‘Rosamunde’. The three brothers and Liisa Randalu show with their album “Fragment” how the compositions of Franz Schubert have developed over the years. A cooperation of Berlin Classics & SWR2, released 14 August.

Daily updated announcements about concerts with our artists can be found on our Facebook page.

Today the entire recording of the Beethoven String Quartets by Quatuor Ébène will be released worldwide!
A project that is no longer conceivable in the current situation: a string quartet on world tour, 6 continents, 10 months, 7 live recorded concerts. Even if most of the quartet’s concert tours are now suspended, we now can still enjoy “their” Beethoven at home.

At 7:30pm (CET), Avi Avital graces us with a 15 minute musical interval to the evening.
This event will be streamed Live and only Live, no catch-up or download.
Tune in on www.simmenauer.de/live or on the https://www.facebook.com/simmenauer/

Ariane Matiakh’s new recording of Ernst von Dohnányi’s pantomime “The Veil of Pierette” with the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra will be released by Capriccio in February:

With its album “Intermezzo” the Schumann Quartet is turning its attention to its prominent Romantic namesake on a recording for the first time. Robert Schumann’s string quartet op. 41/1 is combined with Felix Mendelssohn’s op. 12 and two compositions by Aribert Reimann: his “Adagio in Memory of Robert Schumann” and the Schumann transcription “Six Songs op. 107” for soprano and string quartet with Anna Lucia Richter.

The album was released in 2018 by Berlin Classics.

Preview: The Strad

Not only the Impresariat Simmenauer is celebrating an anniversary this year – we raise our glasses to the 30th  –  but also 5 of our quartets.

Arditti Quartet – 45th anniversary
Artemis Quartet – 30th anniversary
Belcea Quartet – 25th anniversary
Quatuor Ébène – 20th anniversary
Quatuor Modigliani – 15th anniversary

Ariane Matiakh is the wonderful new addition to our conductors list. With her, we win a musician whose career develops so naturally, and whose musicality is so sound that it is a joy to pick up the work with her, and to represent her worldwide for opera and concert.

Artemis Quartet announces the successors of Anthea Kreston and Eckart Runge from June 2019: to mark the 30th anniversary of the Artemis Quartet in 2019, two new players will join the ensemble.

Click here for more information

The award is given annually within the framework of the Musikmesse trade fair in Frankfurt and honours personalities who have made a special contribution to the international music scene and culture.

The Trustees of the Frankfurt Music Prize acclaim Quatuor Ébène as an outstanding ensemble whose electrifying playing is characterised by passion, complete fidelity to the original works and a simultaneous delight in improvisation. Through their seemingly effortless crossover into the world of jazz, the musicians have succeeded in increasing public awareness of the string quartet as the elite of chamber music, as well as attracting more people, especially younger people, to the concert halls.