Since their debut at the Wigmore Hall, London, in 1994 the Dusseldorf-based Orpheus Quartet has been a regular guest to this wonderful chamber music hall, renowned for its uncompromizing standards of performance. The Quartet's concert of 28 May 2000 inspired The Strad magazine to another admiring retrospective, rounding off in the same breath: "One had to marvel at the Orpheus Quartet's sense of timbre, at its unified view of the music and its ability to create both textural variety and impetus."

The Orpheus Quartet spends a lot of time commissioning and playing contemporary music and looks very seriously at all possibilities to broaden the standard repertoire with interesting and forgotten compositions. This has given them an exceptionally wide scope. Not surprisingly. their recordings have been greeted with international acclaim. In January 1993 the Quartet was awarded the Grand Prix du Disque de l'Academie Charles Gros for their interpretation of Malipiero's eight String Quartets, a world premiere recording. The disc of Schubert's Quintet in C major with Pieter Wispelwey, cello, was awarded a Diapason d'Or (1994).

The Orpheus Quartet, a truly international ensemble (French - Dutch - Rumanian), was founded in 1987 by Charles-André Linale (violin), Emilian Piedicuta (violin), Emile Cantor (viola) and Laurentiu Sbarcea (violoncello). Wherever they concertize, audiences and press alike are impressed by the intensity and musical expression of their interpretations. Furthermore, they won in fact every competition they participated in: the Valentino Bucchi International Chamber Music Competition in Rome (1988). the Karl Klingler Competition in Munich (1990) and the first International Chamber Music Competition of Japan, held in Osaka (1993). The result of this were many invitations from all over Europe, The United States and Japan.

After their much praised US debut in 1999, successive tours in april 2000 and november 2001 have been accomplished to great public acclaim. In october 2002 an US tour took place. In the 2000-2001 season the Orpheus Quartet has performed as much as six times in London, four alone in Wigmorehall where they a.o. gave a very successful Schubert-weekend. They made 2 tours with different pianists, one with Homero Francesch (Italy and Germany) and two with their long time friend Menahem Pressler. (Germany, Netherlands, UK, USA and Canada). The Orpheus Quartet gave the opening and closure concertin the Ticino Musica festival (Ascona-Locarno) in summer 2001 and were immediately reinvited for the summer 2002.

Ever since their foundation the Orpheus Quartet has given much of their time to teach and apart from their regular classes in Mainz, Essen, Wuppertal, Aachen and Utrecht, the members of the quartet always give master classes during the Summer in countries such as Spain, Belgium, The Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden and Switzerland.

Further informations about each member of the ensemble and current concert-dates can be found at the homepage of the Orpheus Quartet.

The Ensemble:
Charles-André Linale - 1st violin, Emilian Piedicuta - 2nd violin,
Emile Cantor - viola, Laurentiu Sbarcea - cello

Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
String Quartet in C minor, D 703
Allegro assai

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
Rasumovsky String Quartet No. 8 in E minor, Opus 59 No.2
Allegro
Molto Adagio
Allegretto
Finale: Presto

Sandor Veress (1907-1992)
String Quartet No. 1
Recitativo, presto
Andante
Vivo