Carducci String Quartet

Described by The Strad as presenting “a masterclass in unanimity of musical purpose, in which severity could melt seamlessly into charm, and drama into geniality”, the award-winning Carducci Quartet is internationally acclaimed as one of the most accomplished and versatile ensembles of today. Not only mastering the core repertoire, the quartet presents a selection of new works each season and diversifies further with programmes of film music, pop, folk and rock, as well as concerts of music and spoken word. Founded in 1997, the ensemble was a prize winner at numerous international competitions, including the Concert Artists Guild International Competition, and Finland’s Kuhmo International Chamber Music Competition.

The Carducci Quartet regularly appears at prestigious venues across the globe including the Barbican, Cadogan Hall, Southbank Centre, Royal Albert Hall and Wigmore Hall, London; National Concert Hall, Dublin; Tivoli Concert Hall, Copenhagen; The Frick Collection and Carnegie Hall, New York; Library of Congress and John F Kennedy Center, Washington DC; St Lawrence Center for the Arts, Toronto; Muziekcentrum De Bijloke, Ghent; and Concertgebouw, Amsterdam. Festival residencies include Cheltenham, Ryedale, Aldeburgh, Lichfield, Presteigne, Kilkenny, Canterbury, and West Cork.

The music of Shostakovich has always been a particular point of focus for the quartet. In 2016, they took home a Royal Philharmonic Society Award for their project, Shostakovich15, an immense cycle of Shostakovich’s Quartets performed across the UK, North, and South America, with a marathon one-day cycle hosted by Shakespeare’s Globe, London. The project was accompanied by recordings of the 4th, 8th, and 11th Quartets, before the 1st, 2nd, and 7th Quartets (2019), and 9th and 15th Quartets (2024). Recent projects have included ‘Shostakovich’s Letters’ with actor Anton Lesser – a programme based around translations of texts from the composer himself alongside his music.

In 2015 they curated projects around Philip Glass and Steve Reich as part of the Royal Philharmonic Society Award winning ‘Minimalism Unwrapped’ at Kings Place in London. Their recording of the Philip Glass Quartets, for Naxos, has reached over 21 million plays on Spotify. The quartet will be marking both composers’ 90th birthdays with a major project across the 26/27 season. Upcoming highlights for the 24/25 season include ‘Intimate Portraits’: a series of five concerts presenting the complete Shostakovich quartets at the Barbican Centre, as well as returns to the Two Moors and Leicester Festivals, and London’s Wigmore Hall. The season will also see them collaborate in concert with Charles Owen, Emma Johnson, Julian Bliss, Guy Johnston, and jazz singer Jacqui Dankworth.

Education work is an important element of the Carducci Quartet’s work, earning them a place on the Royal Philharmonic Society Award shortlist for their family concert ‘Getting the Quartet Bug!’. The Carducci Music Trust was set up to support their work in schools and with young musicians. They also perform a number of school concerts each year supported by the CAVATINA Chamber Music Trust.
 
The Quartet has a Website .