Signum Quartett - Biography

"It is with great pleasure that I listen to your energetic earnestness and poetic precision."

(Wolfgang Rihm on the recording of his Quartettsatz on the CD released in 2012)

Thanks to its rousing and lively interpretations, the Signum Quartet has left its mark on the international quartet scene (Signum is Latin for mark, signal, miraculous works) and has established itself as one of the most interesting new ensembles. Founded in 1994, the ensemble has been playing with the current line-up since 2007. The quartet has enjoyed support from Bayer Kultur as part of its stART cultural programme and the BBC has also included the ensemble in its BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists scheme.

Intensive studies with the Alban Berg Quartet, Artemis Quartet and the Melos Quartet as well as collaborations with György Kurtág, Walter Levin, Alfred Brendel, Leon Fleisher and Jörg Widmann have characterised the artistic development of the Signum Quartet, which has won numerous awards (German Music Competition, Premio Paolo Borciani, ICMC Hamburg, London International String Quartet Competition including the Audience Prize).

Concert performances have taken the Signum Quartet to a whole host of international venues, ranging from Madrid, Basel and Paris to Berlin and Amsterdam. The quartet has also performed at the Hamburg Laeiszhalle, the Liederhalle Stuttgart, the Philharmonie Essen and the Beethoven-Haus in Bonn as well as at the Schleswig-Holstein, Rheingau and Aix-en-Provence music festivals. At the invitation of the Goethe Institute, the young ensemble also regularly embarks on extended concert tours, such as to Asia, Central and South America and Africa.

After very successful concerts at London’s Wigmore Hall, Berlin Philharmonie and Tonhalle Düsseldorf with Leon Fleisher, new invitations will bring the Signum Quartet to Frankfurt, Santa Fe, Boston Harvard Musical Association, Philharmonie Luxemburg, Paris (Cité de la Musique and Musée d’Orsay), the London Proms and the Mendelssohn Festtage at Leipzig Gewandhaus. They will also return to play at the Wigmore Hall.

Radio stations in Germany and abroad, the ARD public broadcasting TV channels in Germany, Deutschlandfunk, DRS, ORF and Arte regularly broadcast concerts of the Signum Quartet. Initiated by the Villa Musica foundation, the quartet was invited to record a CD with the SWR radio station presenting works by Schumann and Haydn, including the world première recording of Jörg Widmann’s 1st String Quartet. Since 2009, the Signum Quartett records for Capriccio Vienna. After a first CD with quartets by Ludwig Thuille which was awarded the supersonic in Luxemburg, a recording with movements by Schubert, Rihm, Wolf, Ives and Orff has been released in 2012. The next recording called “No.3” presents quartets by Bartók, Schnittke and Berg and will be released in May 2013.

www.signum-quartett.de