Pavel Haas Quartet
Veronika Jaruskova - violin
Pavel Nikl - viola
Marie Fucxova - violin
Peter Jarusek - violincello

Biography

"Take note: this is one of the most polished and musically exciting young string quartets in the world today."
Washington Post, April 2008

Since winning the Paolo Borciani competition in Italy in Spring 2005, the Pavel Haas Quartet has performed at the world’s most prestigious concert halls and recorded three award-winning CDs, receiving great acclaim from audiences and critics alike.

In 2010/11 the Quartet returns to the Edinburgh International Festival (where it performs a two-concert focus), the Schubertiade, the Dvorak Festival in Prague and the Wigmore Hall. It also visits major venues in Berlin, Munich, Geneva, Madrid and San Francisco. Autumn 2010 will see the Quartet perform a four-concert residency for the BBC in London, and shortly after this the Quartet gives its inaugural concerts as the first ever Artists in Residence of Glasgow Royal Concert Halls.

Recent highlights for the Quartet include performances at Carnegie Hall, Lucerne Festival, Vienna Konzerthaus, Barcelona Palau de la Musica, BBC Proms, the Mariinsky Concert Hall in St. Petersburg and performances at the Louvre, Paris. The Quartet recently toured Australia, the USA and also Japan, where it recorded a concert of Janáček and Haas for NHK television. In 2007, the Cologne Philharmonic nominated the Quartet as ECHO Rising Stars, resulting in a tour to major concert halls worldwide. The Quartet took part in the BBC New Generation Artists scheme from 2007–2009. Most recently, the Quartet was awarded the 2010 Special Ensemble Scholarship of the Borletti-Buitoni Trust.

The Pavel Haas Quartet has released three discs on the Supraphon label. The first recording of Janáček Quartet No.2 ‘Intimate Letters’ and Haas Quartet No.2 ‘From the Monkey Mountains’ was voted one of the CDs of 2006 by The Daily Telegraph, CD of the Week by BBC Radio 3 and Chamber Choice by BBC Music Magazine. The Quartet’s second disc was released in autumn 2007 and saw them complete their recordings of the string quartet works by Haas and Janacek, featuring Janacek’s Quartet No.1 ‘Kreutzer Sonata’ and Haas’ Quartets Nos.1 and 3. Gramophone commented “To describe a CD as musically important is to court a certain level of controversy but I’ll stick my neck out and claim extreme importance for this particular release.” Early 2010 saw the Quartet release their most recent disc: Prokofiev’s Quartets Nos. 1 & 2, which as described as “an instant classic”.

Based in Prague, the Quartet studied with some of the masters of the quartet world including members of Quartetto Italiano, Quatuor Mosaiques, Borodin Quartet and Amadeus Quartet, as well as with Walter Levin in Basel. The Quartet has worked particularly closely with Milan Skampa, the legendary violist of the Smetana Quartet, and continues to enjoy a close relationship with him.

The Quartet takes its name from the Czech composer Pavel Haas (1899-1944) who was imprisoned at Theresienstadt in 1941 and tragically died at Auschwitz three years later. His legacy includes three wonderful string quartets.