The Queens Hall String Quartet

An exciting young quartet, presented by John Boyden, the concert offers an innovative and highly individuated interpretation of two of Beethoven’s greatest quartets (Ops 74 & 95), together with a World Premiere performance of Robert Matthew-Walker’s new Quartetto Conciso, specially commissioned for the QHSQ debut to bridge between the two Beethoven works.

This will be the first time that music of this expressive quality will be brought to life in the natural acoustic of the new Storey’s Field Centre Hall, purpose built for Cambridge audiences in the form of a double cube, or shoebox.

John Boyden has spent his life considering new ways to enliven performance of serious music, in the cause of communication.  By employing expressive devices of the past alongside those of the present, classical works may again be vitalized with originality. This concert proposes a rare new approach to ‘total performance’, where subtle use of portamento and variable vibrato will enhance the experience of outstanding live music-making, while the players’ human pulse will provide the tempo within the context of the piece as it is performed.

“I am more excited about the Queens Hall String Quartet than I can say. We have all worked incredibly hard to deliver a unique experience whose spirituality takes centre stage, even in the most powerful of passages. No dogma is in place except the avoidance of dogma.”

After becoming the first Managing Director of the LSO, John Boyden re-formed Henry Wood’s ‘New Queen’s Hall Orchestra’ in order to reintroduce some of the lost means of expression which that orchestra often succeeded in achieving to critics’ delight. He created ‘Classics for Pleasure’, making over 2,000 recordings, including giving the Gabrieli Quartet, The Lindsays and The Brodskys their first recordings and recording Tallis’s ‘Spem in Alium’ with single voices for the first time.

On 24^th October 2018, he brings the debut Queen’s Hall String Quartet to the concert world with an even more fascinating artistic brief: an all-embracing way of restoring life to an old art form.

Queens Hall String Quartet

Amy Tress appears regularly at major venues such Wigmore Hall and Kings Place and has often broadcast on Radio 3. Amy leads the Solem Quartet currently the Ensemble in Residence at Liverpool University, and an ambassador for Live Music Now and recipient of Tunnell Trust and Park Lane Group awards. She has won numerous awards and prizes.

Joseph Devalle is one of the UK’s rising violinists. He began playing the violin from the age of seven, obtaining a place at Chetham’s School. Joseph continued his studies at the Royal College, where he received the diploma in 2015. He held the Lark Insurance scholarship and won the Fishmongers’ Company Beckwith award. He has often appeared as a soloist and chamber-music player at the Royal Festival Hall, Purcell Room, Queen Elizabeth Hall and St Martin-in-the-Fields.

Jenny Lewisohn is a member of the award-winning Hieronymus Quartet which recently completed a cycle of Beethoven’s Quartets. Recently the Quartet received a masterclass from Alfred Brendel at London’s King Place. Jenny is also a member of the established Lipatti Piano Quartet. Jenny completed her Bachelor of Music with highest honours and Masters with Distinction from the Guildhall School of Music in 2014 where she received the Concert Recital Diploma.

Peteris Sokolovskis was born in Russia and began playing the cello when he was six. He later studied at the Purcell School and the Royal College, both with Alexander Boyarsky. He received the Pierre Fournier Foundation’s Young Cellist Award, the Musicians Benevolent and the RCM Cello Competition. He has appeared in Wigmore Hall, Barbican Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall and Cadogan Hall. He is a regular teacher at the Oxford Cello School.