The Arditti Quartet continues to treat music as something of crucial importance and endless amazement.

—Los Angeles Times

Program

BEETHOVEN: Grosse Fuge, Op. 133
BERG: String Quartet, Op. 3
ADÈS: Four Quarters
BARTÓK: String Quartet No. 4 in C Major

About This Performance

Breathtaking, spirited and risk-taking, the Arditti Quartet has created a “big bang” of chamber music repertoire since 1974 by commissioning and premiering hundreds of new works, leaving an indelible mark on the music of the 20th and early 21st centuries. The Arditti’s performances are literally the stuff of which music history is made and an opportunity to hear them in person can be a life-altering moment.

Artist Biography

The Arditti Quartet enjoys a world-wide reputation for their spirited and technically refined interpretations of contemporary and earlier 20th century music. Several hundred string quartets and other chamber works have been written for the ensemble since its foundation by first violinist Irvine Arditti in 1974. These works have left a permanent mark on 20th century repertoire and have given the Arditti Quartet a firm place in music history. World premieres of quartets by composers such as Ades, Andriessen, Aperghis, Bertrand, Birtwistle, Britten, Cage, Carter, Denisov, Dillon, Dufourt, Dusapin, Fedele, Ferneyhough, Francesconi, Gubaidulina, Guerrero, Harvey, Hosokawa, Kagel, Kurtag, Lachenmann, Ligeti, Maderna, Nancarrow, Reynolds, Rihm, Scelsi, Sciarrino, Stockhausen and Xenakis and hundreds more show the wide range of music in the Arditti Quartet's repertoire.

The ensemble believes that close collaboration with composers is vital to the process of interpreting modern music and therefore attempts to work with every composer it plays. The players’ commitment to educational work is indicated by their masterclasses and workshops for young performers and composers all over the world. From 1982 to 1996 the quartet’s members were resident string tutors at the Darmstadt Summer Courses for New Music.

The Arditti Quartet’s extensive discography now features over 180 CDs. 42 discs have been released as part of the ensemble’s series on the French label Naïve Montaigne. The series presents numerous contemporary composer features as well as the first digital recordings of the complete Second Viennese School’s string quartet music. Stockhausen’s infamous Helicopter Quartet is to be found here. As well as many composer portraits recorded in their presence, the complete quartets of Luciano Berio were recorded shortly before his death. Latest releases include Harvey, Rihm and Lachenmann.

Over the past 30 years, the ensemble has received many prizes for its work. They have won the Deutsche Schallplatten Preis several times and the Gramophone Award for the best recording of contemporary music in 1999 (Elliott Carter) and 2002 (Harrison Birtwistle). The prestigious Ernst von Siemens Music Prize was awarded to them in 1999 for ‘lifetime achievement’ in music.

Irvine Arditti, violin: In addition to his phenomenal career as first violinist of the Arditti Quartet, Irvine Arditti continues to excel as an extraordinary soloist. Born in London in 1953, Arditti began his studies at the Royal Academy of Music at the age of 16. He joined the London Symphony Orchestra in 1976 and after two years, at the age of 25, became its Co-Concert Master. He left the orchestra in 1980 in order to devote more time to the Arditti Quartet which he had formed while still a student.

During the past decade Arditti has given the world premieres of a plethora of large scale works especially written for him. These include Xenakis' Dox Orkh and Hosokawa's Landscape III , both for violin and orchestra, as well as Ferneyhough's Terrain , Francesconi's Riti Neurali and Body Electric, Dillon's Vernal Showers and Harvey's Scena, Pauset's Vita Nova, Reynold’s Aspiration and Sciarrino's Le Stagioni Artificiali, all for violin and ensemble. He has appeared with many distinguished orchestras and ensembles including the Bayerische Rundfunk, BBC Symphony, Berlin Radio Symphony, Royal Concertgebouw, Junge Deutsche Philharmonie, Munich Philharmonic, Orchestre National de Paris, Het Residentie den Hague, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Asko Ensemble, Ensemble Contrechamps , London Sinfonietta , Nieuw Ensemble, Nouvel Ensemble Modern, Oslo Sinfonietta, Schoenberg Ensemble. His performances of many concertos have won acclaim by their composers, in particular Ligeti and Dutilleux.

In April, there was a recital of the music of Biber, Berio, Ferneyhough and Takemitsu in the series Alte Werk for the NDR in Hamburg, with Rudiger Lotte and the well know German group Lyriarte.

In May Chaconne by Roberto Gerhard will be recorded in Barcelona for the French label Aeon for release next year.

Arditti will return to June in Buffalo to perform Pauset’s Vita Nova with the New York-based group Signal conducted by Brad Lubman. He will also play Paredes’ In Memoriam Thomas Kakuska during the festival.

In June, visits to Santiago, Chile and Buenos Aires in Argentina will contain solo recitals with music by Dillon, Ferneyhough, Lavista, Paredes, Sciarrino Valverde and Xenakis.

Preparations are under way for 2012 and the centenery of Cage’s birth to perform the large scale Freeman Etudes in Washington, D.C. and Japan.

As well as having recorded over 180 CDs with the Arditti Quartet, Arditti has built an impressive catalogue of solo recordings. His CD of solo violin works by composers such as Carter, Estrada, Ferneyhough and Donatoni, as well as his recording of Nono’s La Lontananza, both on the label Montaigne Auvidis, have been awarded numerous prizes. His recording of Cage’s Freeman Etudes for solo violin, as part of his complete Cage violin music series for American label Mode, has made musical history. The series is now complete. The violin concertos by Berio, Xenakis and Mira, recorded in Moscow with the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra, are featured on a disc by Swedish label Bis.

Arditti’s arrangement for quartet of Cage's 44 Harmonies from Apartment House can be found on Mode Records. The complete Mode recordings of Berio's Sequenza’s, on which Irvine has recorded the violin sequenza has won the Deutsche Schallplattenpreis for 2007, and was awarded best contemporary music release by the Italian music magazine Amadeus in 2008.

Ashot Sarkissjan, violin: Ashot Sarkissjan was born on the 26th of February 1977 in Yerevan, Armenia. He studied with Ara Bogdanian at the Tchaikovsky Music College in his home town, at the Musikhochschule Lübeck, where his principal teachers were Maria Egelhof, violin, and Walter Levin, string quartet, and with Mihaela Martin at the Hochschule für Musik Cologne. He is laureate of the international competitions in Lublin and Mainz. Since his student years, contemporary music has been a domain of major importance for him. As co-founder of the Ensemble Neue Musik Lübeck, he worked regularly with students from the composition classes, premiering new pieces written for violin or string quartet. He participated in the Academie du 20e Siecle, an annual summer course, organized in Paris by Ensemble Intercontemporain.

Since 2002 Sarkissjan has been a member of Ensemble Intercontemporain (EIC) in Paris, where he worked with many composers including Pierre Boulez, Gyorgy Kurtag and Brian Ferneyhough. He has appeared as soloist with the EIC, the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Stavanger Symfoniorkester (Norway) under conductors such as Sakari Oramo and Jonathan Nott, and also worked, on many occasions, with Ensemble Modern Frankfurt.

Sarkissjan has appeared as soloist together with the soprano Laura Aikin in Le Sacrifice, an oratorio for violin, soprano and ensemble by the Finnish composer Kimmo Hakola. He has performed in many European countries, but also in Russia and the US, and took part in such festivals as Lucerne and Lincoln Center in New York. In his concerts in Armenia, he has introduced many major works of the 20th century, many never performed there before. He has also given master-classes in Paris and Cologne.

Ralf Ehlers, viola: Since settling in the U.K. in 1996, Ralf Ehlers has become one of London’s most sought after violists. Born in São Paulo, Brazil, he won the 1989 Concurso Sul America and went on to give recitals and play concertos with many orchestras throughout South America.

He continued his studies in Europe with Nobuko Imai and later with Thomas Riebl before spending three years as a member of the Pulcinella Quartet with whom he performed extensively throughout France, Germany, Italy and Austria.

Chamber music plays the central role in Ehlers’ musical life and he has performed with such artists as Steven Isserlis, Gabor Takacs, the Emperor String Quartet and the New Zealand String Quartet and appeared at many chamber music festivals including the Mozartwoche in Salzburg, the International Musicians’ Seminar at Prussia Cove and the City of London Festival.

Ehlers has cultivated a particular interest in the works of living composers; he gave the European premiere of George Benjamin’s Viola Viola with Garth Knox, and was invited to perform the piece again at London’s South Bank with Catherine Manson in a program chosen by the composer. He has also worked with many contemporary ensembles including Ensemble Modern in Frankfurt, The Austrian Ensemble for New Music, and the London Sinfonietta.

As a member of the Raphael Ensemble, Configure8 and the Solomon Ensemble, Ehlers has performed at the Wigmore Hall, the South Bank and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Philharmonie in Cologne and other major venues throughout the world. He will perform Ferneyhough’s Incipits for viola and ensemble with Ensemble Modern in this years Salzburg Festival.

Lucas Fels, cello: Lucas Fels is one of the most distinguished cellists for music of our time. His close collaborations with composers such as Klaus Huber, Helmut Lachenmann, Wolfgang Rihm, Salvatore Sciarrino or Beat Furrer led to numerous works dedicated to him. At the Donaueschinger Musiktage, in which Fels has regularly taken part since 1993, he has premiered the cello concertos by Wolfgang Rihm (Styx und Lethe, 1998) and Walter Zimmermann (Subrisio Saltat, 2003) amongst others. In 2002, he premiered Sebastian Claren’s cello concerto After Blinky Palermo at the Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik Darmstadt.

Born in Lörrach in 1962, Fels received his first cello lessons from Rolf Looser in Basle and Zurich. He subsequently studied in Freiburg with Christoph Henkel, in Amsterdam with Anner Bijlsma and in Fiesole/Florence with Amadeo Baldovino. He participated in master classes by Antonio Janigro, Siegfried Palm and Bruno Canino amongst others.

As founding member of the highly renowned Ensemble Recherche, which specialises in new Music, Fels has been actively involved in the development of contemporary chamber and ensemble music. Ensemble Recherche has premiered around four hundred works since its foundation in 1985.

Fels has taught regularly at different conservatories (Lucerne, Essen, Brno, Lviv) and has lectured at the Darmstädter Ferienkurse since 1998. Together with Ensemble Recherche and the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, he founded the Ensemble Academy Freiburg in 2004, which offers courses in the performance of Ancient and New Music to professional musicians and advanced students. In July 2005, he participated in the Centre Acanthes Metz as soloist and teacher.

More than 30 CDs with solo and chamber music works document the wide range of Fels’s repertoire. His recent recordings include Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s Märchensuite, Canto di speranza , Impromptu, Alagoana. Caprichos Brasileiros were released on Wergo, Beat Furrer Gaspra on Kairos and Sebastian Claren’s After Blinky Palermo on col legno. The premiere of a new cello concerto by Mathias Spahlinger is planned for season 2007–08 as part of the Musica Viva series of Bayerischer Rundfunk Munich.

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