Bennewitz Quartet

The Bennewitz Quartet is regarded as the cultural ambassador of the Czech Republic on the international chamber music scene. Based in Prague, the musicians play in the string quartet Olympus thanks to their homogeneity and technical perfection coupled with genuine emotion, and embody the Bohemian-Czech sound idiom par excellence.

 

The quartet is a regular guest at Wigmore Hall in London, the Vienna Musikverein, the Konzerthaus Berlin, the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris, the Frick Collection in New York, the Seoul Arts Centre and the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg. It performs at the Salzburg Festival, the Lucerne Festival, the Lockenhaus Festival, the Rheingau Music Festival, the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival and the Prague Spring Festival.

 

Its chamber music partners include Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Alexander Melnikov, Martin Kasìk, Vadim Gluzman, Isabel Charisius and Veronika Hagen. 

 

The Bennewitz Quartet began its career as first prize winners of two of the most prestigious competitions for string quartets: Osaka 2005 and Prémio Paolo Borciani in Italy 2008. The ensemble is named after the important Czech violinist Antonín Bennewitz, founder of the Czech violin school.

 

The ensemble was Quartet in Residence at the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra in Prague's Rudolfinum, where it received the Classic Prague Award for the best chamber concert of the year. In 2019, the ensemble provided musical accompaniment for the memorial service for the victims of the Holocaust in the German Bundestag and represented the Czech Republic at the closing ceremony marking the end of its EU Council Presidency in Madrid. Once a year, the Bennewitz Quartet tours the USA and Canada.

 

The Bennewitz Quartet has released numerous CDs with works by Bartók, Dvořák, Haydn, Janáček and Smetana, as well as a recording of 'ostracised music' by Jewish composers (Krása, Ullmann, Schulhoff and Haas). This CD was rated by Gramophone UK as a reference recording and “splendid disc”. In September 2024, Supraphon released the new album with quartets by Haydn, Mozart, Vanhal and Dittersdorf.

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