New top quality string quartets are forming one after the other. One of these is the wonderful Aris Quartet from Germany, which is giving a concert in the Festival Theatre as part of the European Concert Hall Organisation's Rising Stars series.
The ensemble formed in Frankfurt am Main in 2009. It sometimes happens that chamber music groups which later turn out to function splendidly are actually "propelled” by an outside person. This was also the case for the four German string players: they were still students at the Frankfurt University of Music when their chamber music professor, Hubert Buchberger, suggested they work together - and they ended up understanding each other perfectly. And the name? Aris? While some would surely seek the answer in Greek mythology, the solution is actually simpler and more playful: Anna Katharina Wildermuth (first violin), Noémi Zipperling (second violin), Caspar Vinzens (viola) and Lukas Sieber (cello) formed a word composed of the last letters of their first names. They learned a great deal from Günter Pichler, the former primarius of the Alban Berg Quartet, and then went on to compete in international competitions - winning more than one of them. Their most notable victories came at the ARD Music Competition in Munich, where they took five prizes. Today, they are at home in the world's great concert halls. Here, they will delight the Müpa Budapest audience with a work from each the Viennese Classical Haydn and the Romantic Mendelssohn, while also delivering an interpretation of a new composition by the Japanese composer Misato Mochizuki, its Hungarian première.
Nominated for the Rising Stars programme by: Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Konzerthaus Dortmund
Haydn: String Quartet No. 61 in D minor ("Fifths”), Op. 76, No. 2, Hob. III:76
Misato Mochizuki: in-side (commissioned by ECHO) - Hungarian première
Mendelssohn: String Quartet No. 6 in F minor, Op. 80
Aris Quartet:
violin: Anna Katharina Wildermuth, Noémi Zipperling
viola: Caspar Vinzens
cello: Lukas Sieber
Featuring:
host: Endre Tóth