» Quartet Gerhard
String quartet
Biography
The story of Quartet Gerhard is a story of friendship. In 2010 four long-standing friends founded the quartet in Catalonia. As a quartet, their studies took them to Basel (to study with Rainer Schmidt), Berlin (to Eberhard Feltz) and Hanover (to Oliver Wille), where they were able to perfect their characteristic warm and homogeneous sound.
Since then Quartet Gerhard has won many honours and prizes at competitions, and has performed at leading festivals including the StadtCasino Basel (Switzerland), Mozartfest Würzburg (Germany), Musikàmera Venezia series at La Fenice (Italy), L’Auditori Chamber Music Series (Barcelona), Muzenforum Concerten Bloemendaal (Netherlands), Bordeaux String Quartet Festival (France) and others. The quartet is intensely committed to contemporary music and has performed at leading centres for new music, including the CNDM series in Madrid, the Nuit de la Création in Aix-en-Provence and the Arnold Schoenberg Center series in Vienna. They are increasingly performing in Germany, and next season play in Hanover, Hamburg, Berlin, Hitzacker, Neuwied, and other cities. In 17-18 the Quartet already has toured in Spain, but also played several concerts in Germany, e.g. as scholars at Heidelberger Frühling.
In 2016 they released their CD ‘Portrait’ with works by Mendelssohn, Robert Gerhard and Ravel (Seed Music). In autumn 2017 the quartet made its debut in the Harmonia Nova series on the prestigious Harmonia Mundi International label with music by Schumann, Kurtág and Berg, and were widely praised for their interpretations. The Guardian wrote of a “hugely impressive debut disc”, and Classical Music described it as “a vitally important disc”.
Quartet Gerhard’s concerts are regularly broadcast on Catalunya Radio and RNE (Spain), NDR (Germany) and SWR (Switzerland).
Quartet Gerhard:
Lluís Castán Cochs, Violin
Judit Bardolet Vilaró, Violin
Miquel Jordà Saún, Viola
Jesús Miralles Roger, Cello
“What is special about Quartet Gerhard is its passionate intensity in performance and expression, a piercing and electrifying penetration into the last secrets of music"
Dr. Ingobert Waltenberger, http://der-neue-merker.eu, January 2018
"The opening account of Schumann's best known quartet, Op 41 No 3 in A minor, gives a good sense of the warmth and immediacy of Quartet Gerhard’s playing, but it’s Berg's Lyric Suite that shows the group at their best, emphasising the music’s histrionic extremes and its rapid changes of mood in an irresistible way. After that, the 15 tiny pieces that make up György Kurtág's Officium Breve, are presented unfussily, with just the right amount of detachment."
Andrew Clements, The Guardian, 5th October 2017