Minguet Quartet

Biography

Ulrich Isfort, violin
Annette Reisinger, violin
Aida-Carmen Soanea,, viola
Matthias Diener, cello

The Minguet Quartet, founded in 1988, is one of the most internationally sought-after string quartets today and gives guest performances in all major 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 touring for concerts around the whole world.

The Minguet Quartet was guest at the Salzburg Festival 2020 & 2021 and has been invited again for 2023. Further projects in the season 2022/23 include concerts at Gewandhaus Leipzig, Prinzregententheater Munich, Arnold Schoenberg Center Vienna, Meistersingerhalle Nuremberg and Alte Oper Frankfurt, L'association Pour l'Art Lausanne, Meister- und Kammerkonzerte Innsbruck, Schubertiade Sion and Schumannfest Dusseldorf.

Previous seasons have taken the Minguet Quartet to the Cologne and Berlin Philharmonie, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Library of Congress and International Gallery Washington DC, Konzerthaus Berlin and Vienna, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, De Doelen Rotterdam, BOZAR Music Brussels, Théâtre des Abbesses Paris, Lincoln Center New York, SouthBank Centre London and The University of Hong Kong, the Festival d'Automne Paris, Grafenegg Festival, Beethovenfest Bonn, Mozartfest Wuerzburg, International Brucknerfest Linz, Rheingau Musik Festival, Tongyeong International Music Festival Korea, Festspiele Herrenchiemsee, Schwetzinger Festspiele, Kammermusikwoche Schloss Elmau, International Stiftung Mozarteum Salzburg and to further festivals and in major concert halls within Europe, in Japan, Central and South America, Canada and the USA.

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 by Wolfgang Rihm, Peter Ruzicka and Jörg Widmann are amongst their most important projects. For the 70th birthday of Manfred Trojahn a recording including the first performance of his second string quartet with clarinet and mezzosoprano after poems by Georg Trakl was released in 2019 (wergo), followed by a portrait CD of the composer Konstantia Gourzi in 2020 (ECM). Outstanding highlight of the last years was the performance of Karlheinz Stockhausen's Helicopter String Quartet as part of a conception by the conductor Kent Nagano.

Program topics of the years 2022-24 will be amongst others the significant birthdays of Wolfgang Rihm, György Ligeti, Jörg Widmann, Anton Bruckner, Josef Suk, Arnold Schoenberg and Luigi Nono.

Partners of Minguet Quartet include the clarinetist Matthias Schorn, the pianists Claire Huangci and Andrea Lucchesini, the violinist Franziska Hölscher, the cellist Jens Peter Maintz and the actor Christian Brückner. As solo quartet the Minguet Quartet played with the WDR Rundfunkchor, the DSO, the Radio Symphony Orchestras of SR, hr, WDR and ORF, with the Bruckner Orchestra Linz and the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra under the conductors Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Markus Stenz, Peter Ruzicka and Ilan Volkov.

With the complete CD recordings of the string quartet literature of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Josef Suk, Heinrich von Herzogenberg and Emil Nikolaus von Reznicek, the ensemble proudly presents its great musical culture, opening up to the public the discovery of impressive music of the Romantic period. In summer 2022 a recording of the entire work for string quartet by Walter Braunfels and a CD with piano chamber music by Ferdinand Hiller were released. In the upcoming years the Minguet Quartet will record the complete work for chamber music by Heinrich Kaminski, music by Alberto Evaristo Ginastera and the unique string quartet by Glenn Gould.

In 2010 the Minguet Quartet was awarded the coveted ECHO Klassik followed by the Diapason d'Or in 2015 and the scholarship RELOAD by the Kulturstiftung des Bundes, Germany, in 2020. As an important cultural mediator the Minguet Quartet was selected in 2022 for the realization of the project „EifelKlang“ in cooperation with NEUSTART KULTUR - Die Beauftragte der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien.

Season 2022/2023