The Martinu Quartet

The Martinů Quartet will bring their world renowned music to the Floyd Center for the Arts, Thursday, Sep. 27, 2018, 7:30PM. Tickets are $25 in advance.

The Martinů Quartet, originally the Havlák Quartet, was formed in 1976 by the then students of the Prague Conservatoire, inspired by and modelled on such string quartets as the Vlach and the Smetana. They put favourable circumstances to good use by intensive practice and study of the quartet repertoire, resulting in seven prizes at important international competitions. They are prizewinner of the ARD Munich (Germany), Evian (France), Yehudi Menuhin (Portsmouth, Britain) and The Prague Spring competitions.

These successes stood at the start-line of the Quartet’s brilliant international career, placing it firmly in the internationally respected Czech string-quartet tradition.

The original Havlák Quartet changed its name in 1985 as a token of its commitment to promote the work of one of the great masters of Czech music, Bohuslav Martinů. Their efforts have been rewarded by a MIDEM prize in Cannes in 2004 for the best CD of the year in the chamber music/solo category – the CD being the second of three NAXOS CDs with Martinů’s seven quartets and other chamber compositions.

Although the main weight of its repertoire is centred on the music of the world’s great composers, the Quartet takes pleasure in seeking out neglected works and in giving first performances of pieces by contemporary composers. Their last double CD of Taneyev Quintets received great recognition (CLASSICA: “A magnificent recording.”, The Telegraph: “F ascinating”) MQ has received at MW Classical Music Web’s “CD of the Month’s” award for its recording of works by Sylvie Bodorová (Terezín Ghetto Requiem) and Ronald Stevenson. It is engaged on a long-term project of performing and recording the complete quartet output of the leading Czech composer resident in the USA, Tomáš Svoboda.
MQ recently finished recording of chamber works by one of the foremost composers from the Czech Republic Petr Eben. The leading Czech CD publisher Supraphon will issue the CD at the occasion of the 10th anniversary of his death.

Apart from its busy concert schedule which takes in prestigious podiums at home and abroad, the Martinů Quartet plays on the Czech Radio, as it has done on the BBC, Radio France, ARD and ORF.