AUTUMN 2026 SEASON OVERVIEW
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ConTempo Quartet (9-13 September)
Kantos Quartet (16-20 September)
Lir Quartet (23-27 September)
Vanbrugh & Friends (2-4 October)
Raja Quartet (7-11 October)
Ora Quartet (14-18 October)
Esposito Quartet (21-25 October)
Pirosmani Quartet (3-8 November)
Vanbrugh & Friends (13-15 November)
Gealán Quartet (19-24 November)
Ficino Quartet (3-6 December)

Kantos Quartet

Sarah Sew, violin
Hugh Murray. violin
Alexandros Koustas. viola
Aoife Burke, cello

Beethoven - String Quartet in B flat Op.18 No.6
Caroline Shaw - Blueprint
Swan Hennessy - String Quartet No.2
Janáček - String Quartet No.2 Kreutzer Sonata

Vanbrugh & Friends

Keith Pascoe, violin
Marja Gaynor, violin
Simon Aspell, viola
Ed Creedon, viola
Christopher Marwood, cello

Click here to read more about Vanbrugh & Friends

Brahms - Clarinet Quintet in B minor Op.115 - version for string quintet
Dvořák - String Quintet in E flat major Op.97 American

Ora Quartet

Siún Milne, violin
Molly O’Shea, violin
Ali Comerford, viola **
Yseult Cooper-Stockdale, cello

** replaced for this tour by violist Robin Panter

Click here to read more about the Ora Quartet and its members

Mozart - String Quartet in F major K.590 [1790]
Florence Price - Five Folksongs in Counterpoint [1951]
Deirdre Gribbin - Before the Moon Shattered and Shone Again [2019]
Schumann - String Quartet in A major Op.41 No.3 [1842]

The last of Mozart’s string quartets and of a set of three dedicated to the King of Prussia, the F major quartet brims with beauty, elegance and wit. Hard to believe when Mozart was debt-ridden and seriously ill, perhaps here lies an antidote for us all.

Florence Price was the first African-American woman to achieve success as a composer of symphonic music. Her first symphony was premièred in 1933 by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, an occasion of considerable social and cultural significance. Following her death in 1953 her music was largely forgotten until 2009 when a substantial collection of works and papers was discovered in her abandoned summer house in Illinois; in the years since, her music has quickly regained the recognition and popularity it deserves. As the title of this 1951 quartet suggests, it offers a selection of well known tunes lavishly dressed up with great skill and aplomb.

Deirdre Gribbin’s Before the Moon Shattered and Shone Again explores cyclical time, inspired by Celtic mythology and the constant presence of the moon. It echoes nature’s cycles, symbolizing life’s waxing, waning, and renewal. The quartet is featured on Musici Ireland’s 2025 CD Earthrise

Schumann’s A major quartet is one of the greats. The delicately wistful sighing of the first movement, the inspired inventiveness of the theme and variations, the wonderful slow movement and the high-octane finale all come together as a memorable and hugely rewarding whole. Earsense.org offers background and a fine collection of recordings.

Marmen Quartet

Johannes Marmen, violin
Laia Braun, violin
Bryony Gibson-Cornish, viola
Sinéad O’Halloran, cello

Click here to read about the Marmen Quartet and its members (link to Marmen Quartet website)

Haydn - String Quartet Op.76 No.4 Sunrise [1797]
Sam Perkin - My Young Love Was Gone [2024] †
Bartók - String Quartet No.3 [1927]
Beethoven - String Quartet in F major Op.135 [1826]

† First performances

Cork cellist Sinéad O’Halloran’s Marmen Quartet is among the top quartets on the international circuit, they return to Ireland for a second NSQF tour with a superb programme.

The Sunrise is perhaps the most popular of all Haydn’s wonderful string quartets. Each of its four movements is vividly characterised - the first evoking the rising of the sun, the second prayerful, the third presenting a wild dance and the finale creating imaginative variations around a simple folksong-like theme and building to a virtuosic conclusion.

Sam Perkin’s new setting of She Moved through the Fair for voice and quartet will feature the singing voice of cellist Sinéad O’Halloran.

Bartók’s third quartet is one of the most astonishing achievements in all chamber music. This is a 17 minute rollercoaster ride of intense and riveting dialogue between the four instruments, never straying far from the folk music which is at the heart of his music and yet creating a language that is utterly new and unique. Kai Christiansen’s article at earsense.org and his selection of performances will tell you more!

Written just six months before his death in March 1827, Beethoven’s sublime last string quartet is a distillation of all that went before. The opening Allegretto more conversational than ever, the scherzo more ingenious and virtuosic, the Adagio perhaps the most profound and prayerful, and the closing movement entitled ‘Must it be?’ the most searching and prophetic. Again, Kai Christiansen’s thoughts are highly recommended!

Vanbrugh & Friends

Keith Pascoe, violin
Marja Gaynor, violin
Simon Aspell, viola
Ed Creedon, viola
Christopher Marwood, cello
Maria O’Connor, cello

Click here to read more about Vanbrugh & Friends
Click here to read more about the Olympia Quartet

Boccherini - String Quintet in E major G.402 [1802]
Stanford - String Quintet in F major Op.85 [1903]
Dvořák - String Sextet in A major Op.48 [1878]

The very last of well over one hundred string quintets written by the prolific virtuoso cellist Luigi Boccherini, this charming work is characteristically refined and elegant.

Dublin born Charles Villiers Stanford was a significant figure in musical life in the late 19th and early 20th century, influential as composer, teacher and conductor. His cheerful and uplifting F major string quintet was recorded by the Vanbrugh Quartet and Garth Knox in 2004 and features a lovely central slow movement inspired by sean-nós singing

Dvořák’s A major string sextet is truly one of the treasures and great joys of all chamber music. Its gentle optimism offers a precious contrast to the difficulties and complexities of our modern world. Highly recommended!

Solas Quartet

Katherine Hunka, violin
Marja Gaynor, violin
Cian Ó Dúill, viola
Aoife Nic Athlaoich, cello

Click here to read more about the Solas Quartet and its members

Grażyna Bacewicz - String Quartet No.3 [1947]
Katherine Hunka - Into the clear air [2025] †
Marja Gaynor - Siúil a Rúin & Paul’s Steeple [2025] †
Schubert - Quartet in A minor Rosamunde [1824]

† First performances

The wonderful Solas Quartet presents another programme full of interest and variety, culminating in one of Schubert’s best loved quartets.

Polish violinist-composer Grażyna Bacewicz wrote her third string quartet while on a concert tour in Paris in 1947 and it has become one of her best known. Its hypnotically beautiful central section is framed by energetic, tightly argued and entertaining outer movements.

Solas Quartet members Katherine Hunka and Marja Gaynor both present new works on this tour, Katherine a new quartet based on the tune The Lark in the Clear Air, and Marja new arrangements of Irish and English folk tunes.

Schubert wrote his A minor quartet in 1824 at the age of 27. It is quite different to the more dramatic quartet Death and the Maiden that he wrote at around the same time, instead offering memorable delicacy and subtlety, an atmosphere of bittersweet yearning and as so often in Schubert’s music, delicious lyricism. See earsense.org for more!

Ficino Quartet

Elaine Clark, violin
Lynda O’Connor, violin
Nathan Sherman, viola
Ailbhe McDonagh, cello

Click here to read more about the Ficino Quartet and its members

Shostakovich - String Quartet No.10 [1964]
Caroline Shaw - Valencia [2012]
Siobhán Cleary - Reel du Pendu [2025] †
Beethoven - String Quartet Op.59 No.1 Rasoumovsky [1808]

† First performances

The Ficino Quartet comprises four of our most inspirational musicians and has featured in NSQF’s programme each year since 2019. This autumn they present Beethoven’s majestic F major quartet alongside a new work by Siobhán Cleary.

Shostakovich’s stunning tenth quartet from 1964 returns to the themes of conflict, aftermath and resolution which pervade many of his earlier quartets. After an introductory first movement, the second movement, marked ‘furioso’, is quite shocking in its aggression and graphic portrayal of violence. It is followed by a prayerful and grief-stricken passacaglia which eventually dissolves into a life-affirming finale, picking up the pieces and carrying on.

Valencia is another in Caroline Shaw’s remarkable series of attractive short pieces for string quartet. It is the Valencia orange that is the hero here, made up, in her words, of Hundreds of brilliantly colored, impossibly delicate vesicles of juice, ready to explode

Siobhán Cleary’s new quartet takes its starting point from Reel du Pendu, a traditional Québécois reel.

Beethoven’s first Rasoumovsky quartet is perhaps the most gloriously expansive of all his quartets. The epic journey of the first movement becomes the playful story-telling of the scherzo, then perhaps his greatest and most loved slow movement gives way to the playful virtuosity of the finale. Earsense.org waxes particularly lyrical on this quartet, and with good reason!