BIOGRAPHY

Florian Willeitner violin; Daniel Stoll violin; Sander Stuart viola; Leonard Disselhorst cello

“…amazingly vivacious, vivid and electrifying… the hot-blooded guys from the vision string quartet seem to be completely fearless” Der Tagesspiegel

Founded in 2012, the vision string quartet has already established itself as one of the finest young string quartets of its generation. With a unique versatility that focuses on the classical string quartet repertoire alongside their own compositions of other disparate genres such as folk, pop, rock, funk and minimalist music. The four young musicians from Berlin who identify as much as a ‘band’ as a ‘string quartet’ are on a mission to re-address, with integrity, how classical music is presented and perceived by both new and traditional audiences.

The quartet experiments with concert formats that challenge perceived expectations whilst being true to their vision of the music. Performances have included Schubert Death and the Maiden Quartet performed in complete darkness, Beethoven Quartet in A minor Op 132 from memory, and experimenting with lighting designers to give further creative dimensions to their performances. Breaking new ground, they have brought these ideas to leading classical concert halls such as the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Berlin Philharmonic, Gewandhaus Leipzig, Oji Hall Tokyo, Philharmonie Luxembourg, Fick Collection New York and London’s Wigmore Hall. Festival appearances include the Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Rheingau, Schleswig-Holstein and Lucerne Music Festivals and the Trondheim and Aarhus Chamber Music Festivals.

As exclusive recording artists with Warner Classics, the vision string quartet recently released their album Spectrum, with music that was entirely composed and produced by the quartet, together with accompanying music videos which the quartet directed, prodcued and curated themselves. In 2020, their debut album memento received an Opus Klassik Award for best chamber music recording. The quartet have achieved many other notable prizes in international competitions such as the 2016 Felix-Mendelssohn-Bartholdy Competition in Berlin and the 2016 International Concours de Génève. Testament to their charisma as well as their musicianship, not only did they receive First Prize in both of these, but all the audience and special prizes too. The Ritter Prize from the Oscar and Vera Ritter Foundation followed in 2021, as well as the Jürgen Ponto Foundation's Chamber Music Prize (2018) and the Würth Prize (2016).

Highlights of the 22/23 season include an extensive tour to Japan including performances in Tokyo, Niigata, Kyoto, Hiroshima and Kanagawa. They will be Artist in Residence at the Beethovenfest in Bonn and the Bodensee Festival at Lake Constance. Elsewhere they perform at London’s Wigmore Hall for a BBC Radio 3 live broadcast, the Vienna Konzerthaus, KKL Lucerne and the Eilat Festival in Israel.

The Quartet completed their chamber music studies with the Artemis Quartet at the University of the Arts in Berlin and with Günter Pichler of the Alban Berg Quartet at the Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía in Madrid. In addition, they have received tuition from teachers such as Heime Müller, Eberhardt Feltz and Gerhard Schulz, as well as participating in masterclasses at the Jeunesses Musicales, ProQuartet in France and the Foundation Villa Musica Rheinland-Pfalz where they were scholarship holders.

The vision string quartet performs with kind support from the Deutschen Musikrat and is endorsed by Thomastik-Infeld strings.

www.visionstringquartet.com 2022/23

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