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4
JULY
The
Kuss Quartet has given much thought
on how to reposition the string quartet to where it once
stood: at the cultural and compositional cutting edge.
Music of the past, played as music of the present. Their
repertoire spans from the Renaissance and Baroque, with
transcriptions of vocal works by Orlando di Lasso and
John Dowland and J.S.Bach's Art of the Fugue, to the
present day. They have studied the works of György
Kurtag and Helmut Lachenmann with the composers
themselves, and have worked regularly with young
composers such as Jörg Widmann and Lera Auerbach. How
the quartet present the music is as varied as the
repertoire itself. The quartet frequently combine sound
and word in the form of concert introductions. They work
with the actor Udo Samel and together they explore the
discourse between music and literature. In their series
Kuss Plus, presented in unconventional venue such as the
Berlin club, Cafe Moscow, they perform concerts with a
variety of guests from different art froms. This is in
cooperation with Radio Berlin Brandenburg, and has
succeeded in bringing new and young audience. The
ensemble has also artistic collaborations with musical
personalities such as Kim Kashkashian, Pierre-Laurent
Aimard, Yuri Bashmet and Sharon Kam.
The Kuss Quartet has won a number of first prizes,
including the Deutschen Musikrat (2002) and the Borciani
competition. In 2003 it was chosen by the European
Concert Hall Organsiation (ECHO) for the Rising Stars
series. Since then, the four Berlin-based musicians have
been invited to the most celebrated international
concert halls: Carnegie Hall in New York, the
Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, London's Wigmore Hall and
the Berlin Philharmonie, and to the most prestigious
festivals – the Schubertiade Schwarzenberg, the
Edinburgh and Salzburg Festivals. The Kuss Quartet
studied with, amongst others, Eberhard Feltz, Walter
Levin, The Alban Berg Quartet and Ferenc Rados.
Both of the CDs that the quartet has recorded to date
with works by Schönberg and Adorno as well as Mozart and
Mendelssohn have received high praise from the critics.
In 2007 a CD called Renaissance meets Modern will be
released.
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