Medici Quartet

The Medici Quartet is well known both because of its critically acclaimed performances from the Beethoven quartets as well as for various functions by British composers, specifically Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Gerald Finzi, Michael Tippett, and John Tavener. But there is a third element towards the group’s popularity, one distributed by few additional ensembles or specific music artists: from 1996, when the three-part tv series Music & your brain was broadcast from the BBC, the Medici Quartet started showing up in concerts worried about the therapeutic great things about music. Because of this it eventually created partnerships with a number of the leading Western medical institutes, like the Amsterdam Medical Center as well as the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. In addition, it performed many concerts over time, with actors providing readings, frequently about the composer’s structure as it linked to his existence. In this effort the Medici Quartet worked well, from about the middle-’70s to middle-’80s, numerous actors from your Royal Shakespeare Organization and movie director John Caird. The MQ offers concertized in over 30 countries and produced several recordings, many on Nimbus, EMI, and Signum. The Medici Quartet was created in 1971 from the ensemble’s longtime 1st violinist Paul Robertson, who was simply only 17 at that time. The additional users had been second violinist David Matthews, violist Paul Silverthorne, and cellist Anthony Lewis. Carrying out a Wigmore Hall (London) debut in 1974, it started carrying out with pianist Clifford Curzon, who quickly became the group’s coach. It had been Curzon who trained the ensemble a lot of the piano quintet repertory and who initiated the concert series using users from the Royal Shakespeare Organization. In 1982 Ivo-Jan vehicle der Werff became the quartet’s violist. From 1988-1990 the MQ documented the Beethoven quartets and Grosse Fugue for Nimbus to great crucial acclaim. More staff changes were forward: Colin Callow changed Matthews as second violinist in 1991, and he subsequently would be been successful by Stephen Morris. 1996 was pivotal season: besides breaking brand-new ground using their extremely effective Music & your brain tv series (which Robertson composed and narrated), the MQ was appointed artists-in-residence on the School of Surrey. In 2003, the MQ provided an acclaimed six-concert group of the Beethoven quartets at Blackheath Halls in London. The next season it repeated the routine in some concerts on the Petworth Festival (Western world Sussex). In 2007 the Medici Quartet disbanded due to Robertson’s unexpected health problems. Nevertheless, all associates re-formed in 2008 as the Medici Outfit.