Haydn String Quartet in B flat major, Op 76 No 4 ‘Sunrise’

Annelies van Parys World Premiere 'Tsunami'

Shostakovich String Quartet No 8 in C minor, Op 110

The Belgian Sonoro Quartet have been making waves throughout Europe with a busy schedule of over 40 concerts a year, coupled with a host of radio broadcasts and competition successes, not least, recognition at the Bartók World Competition for string quartets.

Their programme, entitled ’Reflections’, looks to the past and the ‘father of the string quartet’ with Haydn’s radiant ‘Sunrise’ Quartet, and to the future with a new commission from the Belgian composer Annelies van Parys whose music “feels like an overwhelming encyclopedia of colours” (De Standaard). Shostakovich’s most popular Quartet, his Eighth, was written as a result of a trip to see the bombed out ruins of the city of Dresden. It’s full of self-quotation, including his own musical motto, and steeped in an enigma of profoundly personal meaning.

ECHO artist nominated by BOZAR Brussels