The Barbican Quartet is an original voice on the international chamber music scene. Praised for their unique sound and character, as well as for intensely personal and intelligent performances, the Barbican Quartet celebrates the individual strengths of its members and at the same forges these into a homogenous entity, exploring with fervour both the great string quartet repertoire as well as contemporary music.

In September 2022, the Barbican Quartet won first prize at the 71st ARD International String Quartet Competition as well as several special prizes. The resounding success at the ARD Competition followed the ensemble’s win at the Bordeaux International String Quartet Competition in May 2022, and their first prize win in 2019 at the Joseph Joachim International Chamber Music Competition.

In June 2024 the Barbican Quartet released their debut CD, “Manifesto on Love” on the Genuin Classics label. BR Klassik lauded their playing in this recording as “tonally balanced and perfectly coordinated”, while Pizzicato Classical Music Journal awarded the CD its Supersonic Award and praised their “exhilarating, sometimes even a little boiling interpretations that cannot leave you cold”. The CD was also featured as album of the week on BR Klassik and NDR Kultur.

This season will see the Barbican Quartet making its debut at the Alte Oper in Frankfurt, touring the USA and performing at the Lake District Music Festival and at festivals in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Regensburg. Return performances at the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Prinzregententheater Munich and many more cities across Germany, Italy and the UK.

The Quartet currently holds the Nina Drucker Quartet Fellowship at the Royal Academy of Music in London, where they coach chamber music.

String quartet playing is the most human form of artistry. It requires communication, flexibility and understanding. In a world that is becoming increasingly polarized, the Barbican Quartet is a shining example that individual differences can be celebrated and combined to create something beautiful.

Meet the members: https://www.barbicanquartet.com/artists-1