ARTIST PROFILE
Endellion String Quartet
SAINT PAUL SUNDAY APPEARANCES
LINKS AND RESOURCES
BIOGRAPHY
Formed in 1979, the Endellion String Quartet is renowned as one of the finest quartets in the world. Over the years, their schedule has included regular tours of North and South America and concerts in Australasia, the Far East, the Middle East, South Africa and every West European country. Everywhere, the Endellion String Quartet ‘sets the audience ablaze’ (Daily Telegraph) and captivates concertgoers with a remarkable rapport, ‘playing to each other with a sense almost of discovery, communicating to the audience on a level of unusual intimacy’ (The Guardian).
In Britain, the Endellion String Quartet has appeared at nearly all of the major series and festivals and is regularly broadcast on BBC radio and television. It gave the 25th anniversary concert of the first ever St John’s, Smith Square BBC lunchtime broadcast, repeating the original programme given by the Amadeus Quartet, it has appeared at the Proms, and it has been featured in the week-long programmes “Artist of the Week” and “Artists in Focus”. Its presence in London has been marked by several series both at the South Bank and Wigmore Hall, where the Quartet were Artistic Directors of several "Quartet Plus" series. They have worked with guest artists including members of the former Amadeus Quartet, Sir Thomas Allen, Joshua Bell, Michael Collins, Steven Isserlis, Mitsuko Uchida and Tabea Zimmerman.
The Endellions’ 1987 recording for EMI of the complete string chamber music of Britten was selected as Chamber Music Recording of the Year by both the Daily Telegraph and The Guardian, and was the most highly recommended version in Radio 3’s Record Review. Their Haydn Op 54 disc – the first of a series for Virgin Classics- was the only quartet record featured in Radio 3’s Critics’ Choice of Records of the Year. The Endellions have also recorded Mozart, Bartok, Dvorak, Foulds, Smetana, Walton, Bridge Schubert, Barber, Amy Beach and Tchaikovsky. In 1998 EMI released “Arcadiana”, the Endellion quartet’s commission from the young British composer Thomas Adès, a disc that subsequently received the “Editor’s Choice” award in the 1998 Gramophone Awards.
The Endellion String Quartet has been Quartet in Residence at Cambridge University since October 1992, and undertook two short-term residencies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the USA. They have been Associate Quartet of the Royal Northern College of Music since 2001; and have just begun a Residency at The Venue, Leeds, the country’s newest chamber hall.
The Endellions have given a cycle of all the Beethoven quartets at Wigmore Hall and many other venues and just after the completion of their 25 th Anniversary year they began, in January 2005, to record the cycle for Warner Classics, who plan to release two discs per year for four years.
