Pavel Haas Quartet

In the 19/20 season the Quartet will return to major venues including Tonhalle Zürich, Wigmore Hall London, Philharmonie Luxembourg, Stockholm Konserthuset, Società del Quartetto di Milano and festivals such as the Schubertiade. They will return to Amsterdam Muziekgebouw to perform three concerts at the String Quartet Biennale in January 2020 and will embark on their first tour to Israel with performances in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa. Further tours will be to the US and Canada as well as to Asia, where they will return to NCPA Beijing and give their debuts in Hong Kong and Singapore.

The Pavel Haas Quartet record exclusively for Supraphon and their next recording of Shostakovich String Quartets Nos. 2, 7 and 8 will be released in October 2019. For their latest disc of Dvořák’s Piano Quintet No. 2 and String Quintet No. 3 with Boris Giltburg and their former member, Pavel Nikl, they were awarded their fifth Gramophone Chamber Music Award in 2018. Diapason d’Or chose the disc as Album of the Month and commented: “It is difficult to overestimate their expressive intensity and opulent sound production.” The Quartet received further Gramophone Chamber Music Awards for their recordings of Smetana’s String Quartets, Schubert’s String Quartet ‘Death and the Maiden’ and the String Quintet with Danjulo Ishizaka, Janáček’s Quartet No.2 ‘Intimate Letters’ and Haas’s Quartet No.2 ‘From the Monkey Mountains’, as well as Dvořák’s String Quartets No.12 ‘American’ and No.13, for which the Quartet was also awarded the most coveted prize, Gramophone Recording of the Year in 2011. The Sunday Times commented: “Their account of the ‘American’ Quartet belongs alongside the greatest performances on disc.” Further accolades include BBC Music Magazine Awards and the Diapason d’Or de l’Année in 2010 for their recording of Prokofiev String Quartets Nos 1 & 2.

In spring 2005, the Quartet won the Paolo Borciani competition in Italy. Further highlights early on in their career were the nomination as ECHO Rising Stars in 2007, the participation in the BBC New Generation Artists scheme between 2007-2009 and the Special Ensemble Scholarship the Borletti-Buitoni Trust awarded them in 2010.

The Quartet are based in Prague and studied with the late Milan Skampa, the legendary violist of the Smetana Quartet. They take their 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. 

2019/20 season / 463 words. Not to be altered without permission