The Minguet Quartet, founded in 1988, is one of the most internationally sought-after string quartets today and gives guest performances in all the great concert halls of the world. The passionate and intelligent interpretations of the Minguet Quartet always ensure inspiring listening experiences – “for the joy in sound and expression with which the ensemble makes the works speak enlivens even the smallest detail”. (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung)
The namesake of the Quartet is Pablo Minguet, a Spanish philosopher of the 18th century who attempted, in his writings, to facilitate access to the fine arts for all sectors of the population – and this idea is a chief artistic concern of the Minguet Quartet.
The 2016/17 season included guest performances at the Festival d’Automne Paris, Tongyeong International Music Festival Korea, Mozart Festival Schwetzingen, Festival JetztMusik Stuttgart (SWR), Usedomer and Herrenchiemsee Festival, at the new opening Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Staatsoper and Konzerthaus Berlin, Muziekgebouw Amsterdam, Beethovenhaus Bonn and Richard Wagner Museum Bayreuth as well as concerts in Austria, Italy, Poland, the Netherlands, Suisse and tours to China and the USA. Furthermore a project with works by Italian and German contemporary composers is planned in cooperation with the European Academy for Music and Art Montepulciano and the Kunststiftung NRW.
Previous seasons took the Minguet Quartet to the Cologne and Berlin Philharmonie, the Tonhalle Düsseldorf, Alte Oper Frankfurt, Munich Residence, Brucknerhaus Linz, Stuttgart Music Festival, Würzburg Mozart Festival, Festival Ultraschall and Konzerthaus Berlin, Potsdam Sanssouci Music Festival, and further European concert halls as for example in Paris, Vienna and Venice as well as to the USA, Canada, Japan, Central and South America.
The ensemble concentrates on the Classical-Romantic literature and modern music in equal measure, and has proven its commitment to compositions of the 21st century through numerous premieres. Encounters with important composers of our time inspire the four musicians to create ever new ideas in programming. The first complete recordings of the string quartets of Wolfgang Rihm, Peter Ruzicka and Jörg Widmann are amongst their most important projects. The last-named of these was awarded five stars by Fono Forum in May 2015. Highlight in 2015 was the performance of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Helicopter String Quartet at the Audi Summer Concerts as part of a conception by the conductor Kent Nagano.
Partners include the soprano Mojca Erdmann, the baritone Christian Gerhaher, the clarinettists Sharon Kam and Jörg Widmann, the pianist Andrea Lucchesini, the violist Gérard Caussé, the actor Michael Degen, the Bruckner Orchester Linz, the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra and the WDR Symphony Orchestra under the conductors Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Markus Stenz and Peter Ruzicka. Since October 2015 the members of the Minguet Quartet are engaged as visiting lecturers for chamber music at Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln location Wuppertal.
With the complete CD recordings of the string quartet literature of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Josef Suk and Heinrich v. Herzogenberg (cpo), the ensemble proudly presents its great musical culture, opening up to the public the discovery of impressive music of the Romantic period. In the upcoming years the Minguet Quartet will record the complete work for chamber music by Emil Nikolaus von Reznicek, Heinrich Kaminski and Walter Braunfels as well as the unique string quartet by Glenn Gould.
In 2010 the Minguet Quartet was awarded the coveted ECHO Klassik followed by the Diapason d’Or 2015.
*Pre-concert recital with Ashok Klouda (cello) in the Main Hall, 5:30pm:
Continuing the series he began in 2017, cellist Ashok Klouda explores the masterpieces which inspired him to take up the cello in the first place: JS Bach's Suites for Solo Cello and sets them alongside new works written for him by Natalie Klouda.