The Doric Quartet

Firmly established as one of the leading quartets of its generation, the Doric String Quartet receives enthusiastic responses from audiences and critics across the globe. Winner of the 2008 Osaka International Chamber Music Competition in Japan and 2nd prize at the Premio Paolo Borciani International String Quartet Competition in Italy, the Quartet now performs in leading concert halls throughout Europe including Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Vienna Konzerthaus, Berlin Konzerthaus, Frankfurt Alte Oper, Hamburg Laeiszhalle and De Singel, and is a regular visitor to the Wigmore Hall. The Quartet tours annually to the United States and made its Carnegie Hall debut in 2017. 

Alongside main season concerts the Quartet has a busy festival schedule and has performed at the Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Schwetzingen, Edinburgh, Schwarzenberg Schubertiade, Grafenegg, Aldeburgh, West Cork, Cheltenham, Delft, and Risør Festivals, collaborating with artists including Ian Bostridge, Mark Padmore, Alexander Melnikov, Pieter Wispelwey, Jonathan Biss, Chen Halevi, Elizabeth Leonskaja, Alina Ibragimova and Cédric Tiberghien. In 2018 the Quartet took over the Artistic Directorship of the Mendelssohn on Mull Festival, a position that sees them play a key role in implementing the Festival’s core mission of providing young professionals in the field of string chamber music with a week of intensive mentoring, coaching and development. 

A recent highlight has seen the Quartet take on John Adams’ Absolute Jest for String Quartet and Orchestra with performances at the Vienna Konzerthaus with John Adams conducting, with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic at the Concertgebouw and with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra conducted by Markus Stenz. Their recording of the piece with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Peter Oundjian, released on Chandos in 2018, was named Recording of the Month in BBC Music Magazine and praised for the “sumptuous sweetness and laser-like clarity” of its performance. Future performances of the piece include with the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Joana Carneiro. 

A highlight of the Quartet’s 2019/20 season programming will be the new piece written for them by Brett Dean. Given its world premiere in 2019, Hidden Agendas was co-commissioned for the Doric by Musica Viva Australia, Berlin Konzerthaus, Carnegie Hall, Amsterdam String Quartet Biennale, Edinburgh International Festival and the West Cork Chamber Music Festival and the piece has its country premieres across 2019 and 2020. Other highlights of the season include a tour of Japan including performances in Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya as well as tours to Israel and the USA. In Europe the Quartet returns to the Wigmore Hall four times, where appearances include an all-Britten evening as well as a cycle of the late Schubert Quartets. Collaborations include performances of Chausson with Alina Ibragimova and Cédric Tiberghien; a project that take to venues including the Vienna Konzerthaus, Musée du Louvre, Hamburg Elbphilharmonie and the Amsterdam Muziekgebouw. 

Since 2010 the Doric Quartet has recorded exclusively for Chandos Records, with their releases covering repertoire ranging from Schumann through to Korngold and Walton as well as works with orchestra including Elgar’s Introduction and Allegro and John Adams’ Absolute Jest. 2019 saw the release of the the Quartet’s benchmark recording of the complete Britten String Quartets was released in 2019 and gathered glittering reviews across the board. Recorded at Snape Maltings Concert Hall in conjunction with a series of performances at the Britten Weekend celebrations, the disc was Album of the Week by The Sunday Times, Editor’s Choice in Gramophone and saw the Doric praised in BBC Music Magazine for its “extraordinary affinity” with Britten’s music. The Quartet’s ongoing commitment to Haydn has so far seen them record the complete Opus 20, Opus 76 and Opus 64 Quartets with the recordings attracting acclaim including Editor’s Choice in Gramophone, Choc du Mois in Classica Magazine and a shortlisting for a Gramophone Award. Future releases include quartets by Mendelssohn and the complete Haydn Opus 33 Quartets. 

Formed in 1998 the Doric String Quartet studied on the Paris-based ProQuartet Professional Training Program and later at the Music Academy in Basel, then being selected for representation by YCAT in 2006. In 2015 the Quartet was appointed as Teaching Quartet in Association at the Royal Academy of Music in London. The Quartet’s violist Hélène Clément plays a viola by Guissani, 1843 generously on loan from the Britten-Pears Foundation and previously owned by Frank Bridge and Benjamin Britten.