At the 2024 String Quartet Biennale Amsterdam, along with Lou Bennett and Paul Stanhope, we will be showcasing the European premiere of a new composition for string quartet featuring the addition of the human voice.

Mozart’s Fifteenth String Quartet, which is the second of the six quartets dedicated to Haydn, is a dramatic piece that foreshadows the poignant late string quartets of Beethoven. Similarly, in his Second String Quartet, Britten adopts a serious tone—written in 1945 to commemorate the 250th anniversary of Purcell’s death. Just a few months prior, Britten and Yehudi Menuhin had toured the just liberated German concentration camps, an experience that undoubtedly influenced the resulting composition.