Eliot Quartet
String Quartet
String Quartet
Biography
Founded in 2014, the Eliot Quartet is one of the most interesting and promising string quartets of the new generation. The international ensemble – with members from Russia, Canada and Germany – has won prizes at numerous competitions. It has won 2nd prize at the Salzburg Mozart Competition, 2nd prize at the Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition and three special prizes at the German Music Competition. It was also awarded 1st prize and the special prize for the best interpretation of a work by Szymanowski at the Karol Szymanowski Competition.
The Eliot Quartet is an established fixture on the concert scene in its home city of Frankfurt am Main. As the first “quartet in residence” at the renowned Holzhausenschlösschen of the Frankfurt Civic Foundation, it has been organising its own concert series since 2019. Most recently, the ensemble fulfilled a dream it had cherished since its founding by performing all 15 string quartets by Dmitri Shostakovich as part of its concert cycle ‘DSCH & beyond’. On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the composer’s death, the international quartet – with members from Russia, Canada and Germany – also performed three further cycles at the Carinthian Summer, the MiTo Festival in Italy and in Hamilton, Canada.
Closely related to this cycle is the Eliot Quartet’s latest album on the GENUIN label, which brings together Dmitri Shostakovich’s Quartets No. 3 and No. 8. These are combined with ‘Au-delà d’une absence’ by Krzysztof Meyer, a moving homage to Shostakovich, whose composer still knew the Russian musician personally. The recording reflects the ensemble’s intensive artistic engagement with Shostakovich, which is evident in the ‘DSCH & beyond’ cycle and beyond.
In the 2025/2026 season, the Eliot Quartet will be performing in Frankfurt from 3 to 15 November 2025 with the second edition of its Eliots am Main festival. Prior to this, the quartet will present its festival in Berlin at a ‘Preview an der Panke’ on 23 October at the Lobe Block with works by Beethoven, Haydn, Haas, Adès and a string quartet by Shostakovich as a reminiscence of last season’s Shostakovich cycles. Under this year’s motto ‘Words Move, Music Moves’, the Eliots am Main festival explores exciting connections between musical eras and selected literary works.
The Eliot Quartet has performed at the Bachfest Leipzig, the Kasseler Musiktage, the Styriarte Graz, the Mozartfest Würzburg, the Rheingau Musik Festival, the Ludwigsburger Schlossfestspiele, the Schubertiade Schwarzenberg and numerous other festivals. Performances have taken the ensemble to the Schubertiade Hohenems, the Stuttgart Music Festival, the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival and the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, among others. In 2022, it staged its own festival ‘Eliots am Main’ in Frankfurt, and in autumn 2023, the quartet completed a successful tour of Canada.
The Eliot Quartet studied at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Frankfurt am Main with Hubert Buchberger and Tim Vogler and at the Escuela Superior de Musica Madrid in Günter Pichler’s masterclass. The ensemble also received significant impulses from its collaboration with Alfred Brendel and the Belcea Quartet.
The quartet is named after the American writer T. S. Eliot, who was inspired by the innovative, late string quartets of Ludwig van Beethoven to write his poetic masterpiece ‘Four Quartets’. Several recordings by the Eliot Quartet have been released on the Genuin label.
> To the new album DSCH & Beyond (Genuin, Release Date 7 Feb. 2025)
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