"Take note: this is one of the most polished and musically exciting young string quartets in the world today." Washington Post, April 2008
Veronika Jaruskova - Violin
Eva Karova - Violin
Pavel Nikl - Viola
Peter Jarusek - Violoncello
In Spring 2005 the Pavel Haas Quartet won the Paolo Borciani competition in Italy, and were launched onto the international stage. Since then the Quartet has performed at the world’s most prestigious concert halls, receiving great acclaim from audiences and critics alike. In 2007 the Quartet were awarded a Gramophone Award for their debut CD of works by Janacek and Haas and were named Newcomer of the Year in the 2007 BBC Music Magazine Awards.
In the 2008/9 season the Quartet will embark on major tours of Australia, USA and Japan as well as return tours of the UK and Germany. In the UK the Quartet returns for concerts at the Wigmore Hall, the City of London Festival and the Cheltenham Festival. In Europe they will appear at Le Louvre in Paris, the Salzburg Mozarteum and Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels. Other future highlights include their debuts at the Lucerne Festival and Berlin Konzerthaus as well as two returns to the Concertgebouw. The Quartet are BBC New Generation Artists. This scheme selects twelve expectionally talented young artists and groups to perform BBC studio recordings and high profile UK engagements.
The 2007/8 season saw the Quartet give an extensive European tour, following the Cologne Philharmonie’s nomination of them as ECHO Rising Stars. Tour dates included Vienna Konzerthaus, Salzburg Mozarteum, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, Cologne Philharmonie, Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, and Stockholm Konserthuset. Other European highlights included performances at the Wigmore Hall and the Berlin Phliharmonie. The Quartet toured the USA which culminated with their debut performance at the Carnegie Hall, New York. They finished the season by making their debut at the Edinburgh International Festival.
The Quartet has released two discs on the Supraphon label. The first recording of Janacek Quartet No.2 Intimate Letters and Haas Quartet No.2 From the Monkey Mountains was voted one of the CDs of 2006 by The Daily Telegraph, CD of the Week by BBC Radio 3 and Chamber Choice by BBC Music Magazine. The Quartet’s second disc was released in Autumn 2007 and sees them complete their recordings of the the string quartet works by Haas and Janacek, featuring Janacek’s Quartet No.1 Kreutzer Sonata and Haas’ Quartets Nos.1 and 3. Gramophone commented "To describe a CD as musically important is to court a certain level of controversy but I’ll stick my nexk out and claim extreme importance for this particular release."
Based in Prague, the quartet has studied with some of the masters of the quartet world including members of Quartetto Italiano, Quatuor Mosaiques and the Borodin and Amadeus Quartets. It worked particularly closely with Milan Skampa (Smetana Quartet) in Prague and Walter Levin (LaSalle Quartet) in Basel.
The Quartet takes its name from the Czech composer Pavel Haas (1899-1944) who was imprisoned at Theresienstadt in 1941 and tragically died at Auschwitz three years later. His legacy includes three wonderful string quartets. As well as Haas, the Quartet is passionately committed to the Czech repertoire while their performances of Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Beethoven and Mozart have also received extraordinary acclaim.
The Pavel Haas Quartet is represented by Intermusica.
September 2008 / 526 words. Not to be altered without permission. Please destroy all previous biographical material.