Minguet String Quartet

 

ntic and modern music, promoting the latter by premiering numerous twenty-first-century compositions. Meeting important composer of our time inspires new ideas for concert programmes.

The first complete recording of the string quartets of Wolfgang Rihm, Peter Ruzicka and Jörg Widmann are among their most important projects.

The ensemble present its refined sound and allows listeners to rediscover the impressive music of the late Romantic era in their recent complete CD recording of the string quartets of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Josef Suk and Heinrich von Herzogenberg (on the cpo label).

The four musicians were trained as soloists by celebrated teachers at international conservatoires and studied chamber music at the Folkwang Hochschule in Essen and the Cologne College of Music. They have been influenced by working with Walter Levin (LaSalle Quartet) and members of the Amadeus, Melos and Alban Berg Quartets.

The Minguet Quartet plays on a set of instruments, kindly given on permanent loan by Stiftung Kunst und Kultur, Nord-Rhein-Westfalen.

In the season 2012/2013 there are invitations to the Salzburger Festspiele, the George-Enescu Festival Bucarest, the Mozartwoche Salzburg, the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, the Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern as well as to the Philharmonie Cologne, the Alte OperFrankfurt and the Concertgebouw Amsterdam.

Partners are under others the sopranos Mojca Erdmann and Claron McFadden, the baritone Christian Gerhaher, the clarinettists Sharon Kam and Jörg Widmann, the pianists Ragna Schirmer and Tal&Groethuysen, the violist Gérad Caussé, the Auryn Quartet, the actor Michael Degen, the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrücken Kaiserslautern and the WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln.

For the complete recording of the works for string quartet from Peter Ruzicka the Minguet Quartet was awarded the “ECHO KLASSIK” PRIZE 2010.