“Mastery, elegance, density, complicity, spirit, are words that regularly come back about Quatuor Ebène, now considered one of the very best young quartets worldwide. In the upcoming seasons, the quartet will take part, among other prestigious engagements, in a Haydn cycle at London’s Wigmore Hall, with the Emerson, Hagen, Arcanto quartets in 2008-09. They will also celebrate the Haydn year at Brussel’s Palais des Beaux-Arts and will perform in such other venues as Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, Vienna’s Musikverein, the City of London Festival, Gstaad’s Menuhin Festival… and many other places in Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain, the United-Kingdom, Belgium, Switzerland, the United-States, Japan, ….”
In June 2006, Quatuor Ebène was admitted to the BBC New Generation Artists Scheme. In 2004, the quartet waltzed off with the First Prize of the prestigious ARD Competition in Munich in 2004, as well as the Audience Prize, two Prizes for the best interpretation and the Karl Klinger Foundation Prize. The Quatuor Ebène are also recipients of both the Fondation Groupe Banque Populaire award and more recently the Belmont Prize for Contemporary Music by the Forberg-Schneider Foundation.
The quartet formed while the four young Frenchmen were still students at Boulogne-Billancourt’s Conservatoire National de Région in 1999. After a period studying with Ysaÿe Quartet at Paris’ Conservatoire Supérieur, the Ebène Quartet was then invited to study with Gabor Takacs at the Geneva Music Academy and also with Eberhardt Feldz at the Berlin Hochschule der Kunste and Gyorgy Kurtag.
The young quartet has already been invited to perform in many festivals and concert venues throughout the world including Théâtre du Châtelet, the Wigmore Hall, the City of London Festival, Washington DC’s Corcoran, Festival de la Roque d’Anthéron, Berlin Philharmonie Chamber Music Hall, Munich Herkulesaal, Leipzig Bach Festival, Mozarteum in Salzburg, Barcelona’s Schubertiada, Geneva’s Belle Rive Festival, Ferrara Musica, Florence’s Pergola, .…
Chamber music partners include internationally-renowned musicians such as Christian Ivaldi, Michel Dalberto, Frank Braley, Nicolai Lugansky, Alexandre Tharaud, Gary Hoffman, François Salque, Michel Portal, Eric Le Sage, Paul Meyer, Patricia Petibon, the Lindsay Quartet …
The Quatuor Ebène is distinguished by its open-mindedness and versatility. Displaying equal facility in the classical repertoire and contemporary music, the quartet also performs jazz concerts in renowned jazz venues (la Roque d’Anthéron, Jazz à Vienne, Vannes Jazz Festival,…)
The Quatuor Ebène has recorded a live Haydn CD (Mirare, Harmonia Mundi) which was released in February 2006. The CD was unanimously praised worldwide. They will record a Bartok CD in September 2006.
