Navarrra String Quartet (Great Britain)

Rebecca Chan, violin

Bartosz Woroch, violin

Sascha Bota, viola

Brian O’Kane, cello

Programme:

Pēteris Vasks, String Quartet No. 4

Benjamin Britten, String Quartet No. 1

Maurice Ravel, String Quartet

Since its inception in 2002, the Navarra String Quartet has won international acclaim as one of the most dynamic and poetic string quartets of today. Winner of a number of competitions and scholarships, the ensemble has proved itself with concerts in world-famous concert halls like Wigmore Hall, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Philharmonie Luxembourg, Konzerthaus Berlin and the Sidney Opera House.

In 2010, in the presence of the composer Pēteris Vasks, the quartet recorded its first album, a compilation of three string quartets by Pēteris Vasks. The BBC Music Magazine in its review gave the album five stars out of five. The successful collaboration of several years between the quartet and the composer was the reason why Pēteris Vasks invited the Navarra String Quartet to take part in his festival in Cēsis.

As part of the festival programme, we will hear the quartet interpret Pēteris Vasks’ String Quartet No. 4, followed by pieces by Britten and Ravel.

‘The British-based Navarra Quartet are playing like angels…’

–  Tully Potter on the studio album Love and Death

‘A stimulating mix... even the most darkly melancholic works are suffused with the light, expressive touch of the Navarra.’

– Sarah Urwin Jones, BBC Music Magazine