Martin Funda Violin
Johanna Staemmler Violin
Teresa Sponge-Biskamp Viola
Peter-Philipp Staemmler Violoncello

The spectacular success at the International ARD Competition in 2012 (First Prize, Audience Award and six special prizes) marked the beginning of a unique career for the Berliner Ensemble. As BBC New Generation Artists (2014-16) and ECHO Rising Stars (2016/17), the musicians*, who studied with former members of the Artemis Quartet as well as with Rainer Schmidt (Hagen Quartet) and received important impulses from Reinhard Goebel, Alfred Brendel, Marek Janowski and Tabea Zimmermann, established themselves in the most renowned chamber music halls in Europe, Asia and the USA. In the 2022/23 season, the ensemble will perform at the Beethovenfest Bonn, the Schubertiade Hohenems, and the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, among others. In addition to the complete recording of Mozart's string quartets for CAvi Records, the discography includes works by Béla Bartók, György Ligeti, György Kurtág, Ludwig van Beethoven and Dmitri Shostakovich. The quartet gives master classes at home and abroad and is committed to social and educational institutions. The Armida Quartet recently became the first chamber music ensemble to become an ambassador for the Orchestra of Change Germany Association, which was founded in 2020 as a climate and conservation initiative by members of numerous professional orchestras.

To the concerts with the Armida Quartett

Susanne Schäffer Violin
Eszter Kruchió Violin
Sara Marzadori Viola
Bas Jongen Violoncello

Recently awarded 2nd prize at the prestigious Bordeaux International String Quartet Competition 2022 and the special prize for the best interpretation of "Terra Memoria" by Kaija Saariaho, the Chaos String Quartet has quickly found its place on the international stages. Other achievements include 2nd prize and numerous special prizes at the Bartók World Competition 2021 and winning the International Premio V.E. Rimbotti in Italy. The young ensemble has been invited to music festivals and concert series such as Davos Festival - Young Artists in Concert, Ravenna Festival, Gent Festival van Vlaanderen, Musica Insieme Bologna and Festival Academy Budapest. In addition to working with their mentor Prof. Johannes Meissl in Vienna as part of the ECMAster program, the quartet completed postgraduate studies at the Scuola di Musica di Fiesole with Cuarteto Casals. The ensemble received further musical impulses from Eberhard Feltz, Patrick Jüdt, Rainer Schmidt (Hagen Quartet), Hatto Beyerle (Alban Berg Quartet), András Keller (Keller Quartet) and Oliver Wille (Kuss Quartet). The quartet is a member of the network Le Dimore del Quartetto and was recently selected as one of the fellows of the New Austrian Sound of Music program. The Chaos String Quartet develops cross-disciplinary performance projects and will be heard in the 2022/23 season in Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, England and elsewhere.

To the concerts with the Chaos String Quartet

Agata Daraškaite Violin
Magdalena Loth-Hill Violin
Elitsa Bogdanova Viola
George Ross Violoncello

The Consone Quartet is the first string quartet consisting of period instruments to be selected as BBC New Generation Artists. Founded at the Royal College of Music in London, it has already won two prizes at the York Early Music International Young Artists Competition in 2015. In 2022, the quartet finally received a grant from the prestigious Borletti-Buitoni Foundation (BBT). The quartet has made guest appearances at London's Wigmore Hall, King's Place, and St Martin-in-the-Fields, as well as the Edinburgh, Cheltenham, and King's Lynn festivals. In particular, the early music festivals in Brighton and York have been important supporters in recent years. Further performances at the Philharmonie de Paris and the Auditorium de Lyon, at the Concertgebouw Brugge, at the Concerts d'été à St Germain in Switzerland followed. The Consone Quartet enjoys collaborating with fellow musicians such as Anneke Scott, Gwilym Bowen, Paolo Zanzu, Mahan Esfahani, Justin Taylor, Gillian Keith and Jane Booth. They are currently chamber music fellows at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama London. In the summer of 2021, they launched "Barnstorming!", a series of intimate chamber music concerts held in barns across the UK. Other recent and upcoming highlights include a return invitation to Wigmore Hall, tours of Japan, northern England and Scotland, North American debut, and a "Consone & Friends" series for BBC Radio 3.

To the concerts with the Consone Quartet

Jonathan Schwarz Violine
Amelie Wallner Violin
Mayu Konoe Viola
Lukas Schwarz Violoncello

Having already caused storms of enthusiasm among the audience of the Heidelberg Spring String Quartet Festival in 2022, the Leonkoro Quartet returns to Heidelberg in 2023. Already in the first half of 2022, the Leonkoro Quartet was crowned with two first prizes: the 1st prize at the Quatuor à Bordeaux Competition and the 1st prize at the Wigmore Hall London International String Quartet Competition. The appointment to the prestigious BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists program, of which the quartet will be a part from 2022 to 2024, came at the end of May 2022. Furthermore, the ensemble was honored with the coveted and highly endowed music prize of the Jürgen Ponto Foundation, which is awarded every two years to an outstanding string quartet. In addition to studying chamber music with Heime Müller at the Musikhochschule Lübeck, the quartet has been studying with Günter Pichler (primarius Alban Berg Quartet) at the Chamber Music Institute of the Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía Madrid since 2020. The four musicians received further artistic impulses from the Artemis Quartet, Alfred Brendel, Reinhard Göbel, Rainer Schmidt (Hagen Quartet), Oliver Wille (Kuss Quartet) and Luc-Marie Aguera (Quatuor Ysaÿe). In the 2022/23 season, the Leonkoro Quartet will perform at venues including the Konzerthaus Berlin, the Alte Oper Frankfurt, the VIBRE Festival in Bordeaux and the Dresden Music Festival. In addition, the ensemble will begin its three-year residency in Leeds and will perform two concerts at the Esterhazy Palace.

To the concerts with the Leonkoro Quartett

Johannes Marmen Violin
Laia Valentin Braun Violin
Bryony Gibson-Cornish Viola
Sinéad O'Halloran Violoncello

Winners of 1st prizes at both the Banff (2019) and Bordeaux (2019) International String Quartet Competitions, the Marmen Quartet currently stands out as one of the most exciting young representatives of the international chamber music scene. The London-based quartet is currently on a two-year residency at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. The quartet has performed on Swedish Radio and BBC Radio 3, as well as at major festivals such as the Sommerliche Musiktage Hitzacker, the Kammermusikfest Lockenhaus and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. After an initial tour of Europe as the winning Banff quartet and a Beethoven cycle in Sweden, the quartet has performed in Japan and Germany, including the Pierre Boulez Saal Berlin, the Berlin Philharmonie, the Alte Oper Frankfurt, Stockholm and Graz. It will be heard this season, in addition to Heidelberg, in Belfast, at the Lucerne Festival, the Gulbenkian Biennale, Wonderfeel Helsinki, and the Estivales de Musique en Médoc.

To the concerts with the Marmen Quartet

Sarah Dayan Violin
Cécile Roubin Violin
Guillaume Becker Viola
Lydia Shelley Violoncello

Only a few years after its foundation in 2004, Quatuor Voce has already won numerous prizes at international competitions: Cremona, Geneva, Vienna, Bordeaux, Graz and London. This was followed by concerts in the worldwide chamber music scene, among others with established artists such as Miguel da Silva, Yuri Bashmet and Michel Portal, but also with young up-and-coming musicians such as Shani Diluka, Bertrand Chamayou or David Kadouch. In 2009, at the instigation of Günter Pichler, the quartet received a scholarship to the Chamber Music Institute of the Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía Madrid. On the recommendation of the "Cité de la Musique", Quatuor Voce performed in the 2013/14 season in the "Rising Stars" series in the major concert halls of Europe. It is a special concern of the Quatuor Voce to repeatedly detach classical music from its traditional environment, the concert hall. In the process, the musicians experiment with many forms of musical expression, giving a new "voice" to masterpieces of the silent film era and collaborating with colleagues from a wide range of disciplines: Bernard Fournier (musicologist), Matthieu Chédid (pop singer/guitarist), Jean-François Zygel (improviser), Kyrie Kristmanson (folk and jazz singer) and Thomas Lebrun (choreographer). Since spring 2017, they have been present in Parisian musical life with their own concert series, mainly dedicated to new paths of repertoire and unusual projects with other arts and artists*.

To the concerts with Quatuor Voce

As professor of chamber music at the Hanover Academy of Music, where he supervises an internationally successful quartet class, Oliver Wille is pioneering the field of chamber music education through these creative and innovative projects. In the meantime, numerous ensembles trained by him are international prize winners and can be experienced on the important stages worldwide. Together with Jana Kuss, the then 14-year-old was one of the founding members of the Kuss Quartet. The ensemble has been performing on all major concert stages and festivals worldwide since 2002 and has several award-winning CD recordings to its credit. Most recently, the foursome recorded the Beethoven Quartet cycle on Paganini's Stradivaris live at Tokyo's Suntory Hall. The Kuss Quartet pioneered new concert formats and concept programs, for example with the Kuss Plus series in Berlin techno clubs. For years, they have regularly commissioned renowned composers. In addition to a visiting professorship in violin and string quartet at the Royal Birmingham Conservatory, the Berlin native is artistic director of the Sommerliche Musiktage Hitzacker and chairman of the project advisory board and the overall jury of the German Music Competition. Oliver Wille is a sought-after music mediator, regularly moderates discussion concerts, leads workshops, and was artistic director of the chamber music series in Hanover from 2011 to 2020. Since 2021, together with Antje Weithaas, he has dedicated himself to the challenge of leading the renowned International Joseph Joachim Violin Competition Hannover into the future.

To the events with Oliver Wille