Wednesday 14 May 2025
7pm
Silk Street Music Hall
Guildhall – MDW (Vienna) exchange: String Quartet Concert & Workshop
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Silk Street
Eating is not permitted in the auditorium. Drinks are allowed inside the auditorium in polycarbonates.
Filming or recording of the performance is not permitted.
Latecomers will be able to enter the auditorium at a suitable break in the performance.
Guildhall School of Music & Drama
Founded in 1880 by the City of London Corporation
Chair of the Board of Governors
The Hon. Emily Benn
Principal
Professor Jonathan Vaughan
Vice-Principal & Director of Music
Armin Zanner
Guildhall – MDW (Vienna) annual chamber music & creativity exchange, led by professor Johannes Meissl (MDW) and David Dolan (Guildhall School)
hosted by Guildhall School's Centre for Creative Performance & Classical Improvisation
Join us for an evening concert / workshop, part of a special exchange between Guildhall School and the mdw-University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna.
Three established string quartets, the Vienna-based Motus Quartet, and the Sonas String Quartet and Quartet Concrète from London, will share with the audience their working process and its outcomes on some examples from well-known and beloved canonical string quartet works.
The event will include both workshopping and performing, during which the quartets will use improvisation-based concepts to delve into works such as Beethoven’s String Quartet Op 95 (Serioso), Schubert’s Death and the Maiden, and the first movement of Mendelssohn’s String Octet in E-flat major. The evening will conclude with an open conversation with the audience.
Rather than a formal concert, this is an invitation to join the musicians during their work in progress, experience them taking risks, applying intense heightened listening and musical telepathy as well as searching for expressing narrative.
The audience is warmly invited to participate by asking questions and become a part of the process.
Motus Quartet
MDW (Vienna)
Tim de Vries violin
Karla Križ violin
Erin Pitts viola
Domonkos Hartmann cello
The Motus Quartet was founded in October 2022 and consists of Tim de Vries, Karla Križ, Erin Pitts and Domonkos Hartmann. They met during their studies in Vienna, where the quartet currently studies with Johannes Meissl and Peter Schuhmayer at the University for Music and Performing Arts Vienna (MDW). Further musical impulses have come from Hatto Beyerle, Eckart Runge, the Jerusalem Quartet, the Danish String Quartet, Tim Frederiksen, Minna Pensola, Patrick Jüdt and Avedis Kouyoumdjian, among others. The quartet is also privileged to have worked with composer György Kurtág on various pieces including his own composition 12 Microludes for String Quartet, Op 13.
Most recently, the quartet was awarded first prize and special prize for the best interpretation of an early classical work at the 10th International Joseph Joachim Chamber Music Competition. Furthermore, the ensemble was awarded two prizes at the 2023 International Summer Academy of the MDW (ISA): the Artis Quartet Award and the Viennese Classicism Award.
The Motus Quartet regularly takes part in ECMA (European Chamber Music Academy) and Musethica sessions all over Europe. The Motus Quartet has given debut concerts at the Konzerthaus Vienna, the Musikverein Vienna and the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, with recent concert engagements in most of Europe, Asia, Africa and North America.
Tim de Vries performs on a violin made by Lorenzo Storioni (Cremona, 1793) and a violin made by Julia Maria Pasch (Vienna, 2024). Karla Križ plays on a composite Andrea Guarneri violin (Cremona, C17th).
Sonas Quartet
Guildhall School
Yente Lottman violin
Isabelle Allan violin
Eve Quigley viola
Alice Abram cello
The Sonas Quartet have been playing together at Guildhall School since 2022, under the tutelage of Gary Pomeroy from the Heath Quartet. They have enjoyed visiting coachings from other professors including David Waterman, Garfield Jackson, the Jerusalem Quartet and the Confluence Quartet. The group have performed in the Guildhall School Chamber Festival concerts for the past two years.
In 2024 they were fortunate to achieve first place in the St James’ Chamber Prize at Guildhall School. As a result of this, they performed in Southwark Cathedral in May 2024.
During summer 2023, the Sonas Quartet were accepted into the ‘Sounds of Change’ EU course, where they travelled to Germany and had masterclasses with musicians such as Kirill Troussov and Philippe Graffin. Following this, they were invited to perform a series of concerts in Portugal in October 2024. They have also been accepted as Southwell Festival’s 2024 quartet apprentices, and look forward to performing there in May and August, and were accepted to the Britten Pears Young Artist Programme for the 2024/25 season.
Quartet Concrète
Guildhall School
Anna Brown violin
Leon Human violin
Dominic Stokes viola
Joseph Barker cello
Quartet Concrète formed at Guildhall School in 2021. During their time together they have been praised for their natural chemistry, colourful atmospheres and well-blended sound. The quartet has been fortunate enough to receive regular coaching from tutors such as Krysia Osostowicz, Ursula Smith, Matthew Jones and Gary Pomeroy as well as members of the Endellion Quartet. They have been selected for many inspiring masterclasses with players such as András Keller and Levon Chilingirian.
Highlights of their time together include performances in Milton Court Concert Hall as a part of the Guildhall School’s Chamber at Eight series. In 2023, the quartet were awarded first prize at the Guildhall School’s St James’ Chamber Music Competition and subsequently performed two recital programmes at St James’ Piccadilly in June and November of 2023. The quartet were selected by Chamber Studio to be a part of the Hans Keller Chamber Forum for the 2023/24 period where they received mentorship from Alasdair Beatson, John Myerscough and Richard Ireland.
In summer 2024 the Quartet were invited to be a resident string quartet at Lake District Music’s Summer Festival. They performed several of their own recitals as well as alongside the Alkyona Quartet, trio Shaham-Erez-Wallfisch and received masterclasses from the Brodsky and Heath Quartets.
About the Guildhall – MDW (Vienna) annual chamber music & creativity exchange
The word ‘Improvisation’ sounds like the complete opposite of what high quality classical music performance is about, doesn’t it?
This is far from what European art-music performance was about until the end of the 19th century, when listeners expected to be surprised and be taken into the unexpected. The performance of well-known works included improvised repeats and cadenzas, extemporised preludes before a performed composition, interludes between movements and postludes following canonical works and entire extemporised pieces. In addition, fantasias were often improvised on themes provided by the audience.
The Austrian MDW and Guildhall School in London are collaborating to revive this tradition and its spirit. This event, guided by Professor Johannes Meissl (MDW) and Professor David Dolan (Guildhall School), demonstrates this collaboration.
Forthcoming Events
The Ivan Sutton Chamber Music Award
20 May 2025
Silk Street Music Hall
Join the finalists of the Ivan Sutton Chamber Music Competition as they perform major chamber music works with piano.
23 May 2025
Silk Street Lecture Recital Room
We shine the spotlight on outstanding Guildhall guitarists in this chamber concert celebrating the instrument.
27 May – 2 July 2025
Milton Court Concert Hall & Silk Street Music Hall
Enjoy over a month of free recitals by undergraduate and postgraduate musicians at Guildhall School.
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