“...it is without a doubt that this string quartet is one of the best ensembles in the world.”
“The Quatuor Voce has every quality that goes to make a good quartet: refinement, beautiful tone, excellent ensemble, precise chording, fine rhythm and loads of character.”
“...they know the architecture of the music from the inside out.”
Crédit photo : Sophie Pawlak
BIOGRAPHY
In the last 18 years, the Quatuor Voce has established itself as one of the most eclectic and adventurous string quartets on the classical music scene. Laureates of numerous international competitions and passionate about defending the great string quartet repertoire, alone or alongside such exceptional musicians as Yuri Bashmet or Gary Hoffman, their concerts take them all over the world, from Helsinki to Cairo, from Tokyo to Bogota. In 2021 the quartet was named « Quartet in Residence » at the Haute École de Musique in Geneva, succeeding the legendary Hungarian violinist and founder of the Tacaks Quartet, Gabóor Takács-Nagy.
The past seasons have seen the Voce travelling the globe with tours of Japan, Haïti, Australia and the United States and South America, (in such halls as the Oji Hall in Tokyo, the Teatro Colon in Bogota, the Frick Collection in New York) as well as numerous concerts in Europe, including Denmark, Switzerland, Germany, Italy, Ireland and the United Kingdom - notably the Wigmore Hall - and not forgetting many performances in the great French concert halls (Philharmonie de Paris, Opera de Nantes, TAP de Poitiers…). The Voce have been welcomed to such notable international halls as the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Konzerthaus in Vienna, the Philharmonie in Luxembourg, the BOZAR in Brussels …
The quartet’s recordings of Schubert, Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms, Bartok, Janaeck and Schulhoff have all met with high critical acclaim from the international press, such as The Strad, Télérama (FFFF), Suddeutsch Zeitung, Diapason (5 Diapasons) and the Guardian. Their close relationship with the record label Alpha Classics has already given rise to six recordings for both string quartet and in collaboration with renowned artists such as Juliette Hurel, Lise Berthaud, Vincent Segal and Kinan Azmeh. In 2018 they appeared on the label Aparté on the album « Ballad in Red » with Emmanuel Ceysson, harp solo at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, and in 2019 their interpretation of Brahms’ Clarinet Quintet with French clarinetist Florent Héau was be released on the label Klarthe.
To celebrate 15 years of existence, in 2019 the Voce recorded both Mozart and Schubert’s 15th string quartets, an album which received high critical acclaim.
The first volume of their newest album, « Poétiques de l’instant » a two-fold project centered around Debussy and Ravel’s string quartets and including new works by Yves Balmer and Bruno Mantovani was released in April 2022 and crowned with Diapason’s Diapason d’Or and a Diamond from Opéra Magazine. The second volume was released in June 2023 to high critical acclaim (Télérama TTT).
Having studied with the Quatuor Ysaye, Günter Pichler (charismatic first violinist of the Alban Berg Quartett), and Eberhard Feltz, the Voce have a strong desire to transmit their experience and passion for chamber music to the younger generation. Since 2010 they have taught in several Paris conservatoires for ProQuartet, and in 2017, with the support of the city of Vendôme and of Monceau Assurances, they created « Quatuor à Vendôme », their own festival-academy dedicated to studying and performing chamber music. More recently they created a second chamber music academy and festival in the remote region of the Ardèche, the Rendez-vous des Princes, which will see it’s third edition in 2023.
Open to the world which surrounds them, they regularly create and commission music by composers of the day, for example Bruno Mantovani, Graziane Finzi, Alexandros Markeas…
Convinced of the relevance of the string quartet formation in our modern society and passionate about sharing their music with a wide audience, the innate curiosity of the Quatuor Voce has brought its members to experiment with many diverse art forms. They frequently give their voice to silent movies, and have shared their universe with such diverse personalities as the « mutant » cellist Vincent Segal, singers Kyrie Kristmanson and Aynur, choreographers Thomas Lebrun and the brothers Ben Aïm, and the accordionist Vincent Peirani.
After many encounters with some of the world’s finest world music and jazz musicians, in 2017 the Voce imagined « Itinéraire », a journey through sixteen strings from Brazil to Indonesia, passing through Iran, Cuba and Egypte. A new repertoire situated at the frontier between written and improvised music, freely inspired by the example set by Béla Bartok and created in collaboration with five composers from multiple horizons, the album « Itinéraire » was released in the autumn of 2018 on Alpha Classics.
Their most recent project, Figures Argentines explores different Argentinian musical folklore through the music of Ginastera, Piazzolla and a new work commissioned from young Argentinian composer Fernando Fiszbein, « Gardel Piccado ». Their principal travel companion for this new musical journey is the grand Argentinian guitarist Pablo Marquez, with whom they were in residence at the Abbaye de Royaumont and on tour in Argentina in the springtime of 2023.
The Quatuor Voce would like to particularly thank Monceau Assurances, the DRAC Pays de la Loire, SPEDIDAM, SACEM, the Centre National de la Musique, ADAMI and ProQuartet CEMC for their continued support.
CONCERTS
FRENCH AND INTERNATIONAL PRESS
“Quatuor Voce made the Debussy as captivating and moving as ever, and were so insightful with the textural imagination of Britten’s concise, deceptively simple-seeming character pieces as to have me feeling, for the duration, that this vivid opus even eclipses his three numbered string quartets.”
“When Quatuor Voce performs, every phrase receives an emotional weight; every gesture develops a meaningful expressiveness.”
“Quatuor Voce are, without a shadow of doubt, one of the world’s finest string quartets. Their success is all the more remarkable, since they have not made their mark through the “big bang” of winning prizes in celebrated competitions, but rather through persistently hard and honest work that has culminated in performances of quality in concerts and other engagements. ”
“The Quatuor Voce convince with Ravel’s only string quartet, both musically and technically a highly demanding work. Suppleness and joy abound with their risk-taking, curiosity in their sound colours and technical brilliance : all this distinguishes the Quatuor Voce. Their playing is striking and exciting, refined and virtuosic. With this interpretation, the public succumbed to the rich colours of Ravel. A superb evening! ”
““The young French quartet, extremely concentrated and with much vigour, expressed their music with passion (…) The discipline is stupefying, the ensemble is impeccable, the spectrum of sound so wide that we would have thought we were before a whole orchestra – including the woodwind and the brass. (…) The result is a marvellous flexibility, convincing even in the smallest of details in the music. We should see the brilliant Quatuor Voce more often.””
“The Quatuor Voce and Lise Berthaud’s commitment, ‘joie de vivre’ and instrumental mastery brings justice to the spirit of these works. The communal respiration and the profoundness of these five artists in total osmosis raises up these sublime pages to the highest peaks. A real treat ! ” ”
“Schubert’s last quartet, with its large, suspenseful dimensions and mood swings characterized by strong, close contrasts, finds with the Quatuor Voce performers of the highest calibre.
Their sound always remains round and controlled, and despite all the intensity and tonal differentiation, even the sharpest contrasts never seem forced.”
PROJECTS
¡ Ceci n’est pas un tango !
The Voce team up with choreographer Ambra Senatore and bandoneonist Jean-Baptiste Henry in ¡ Ceci n’est pas un tango ! (¡ This is not a tango !), a danced concert.
Be it original works, commissions from the composer Gabriel Sivak, or reinterpretations of traditional tango themes, the show transports us to a world shaped by migrations and cross-cultural exchanges between Europe, Africa and Latin America. To put this musical score into body and movement, the dancer-choreographer Ambra Senatore offers an instantaneous composition on the edge of theater and performance, to which the musicians gladly join in.
Rejecting all academicism, Ambra strives to shift the listening, to subvert the subject, to take the opposite view, and thus invites you to enter a whimsical universe, between melancholy and gentle irony...
Itinéraire
A journey on 16 strings from Brazil to Indonesia, stopping off in Iran, Cuba and Egypt …
“After many years of performing, and with a whole range of experiences nurtured by many different new encounters, we have conceived Itinéraire as a journey with sixteen strings, freely inspired by the trailblazing example of Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály. At the dawn of the 20th century these two young musicians, their remarkable futures still lying ahead, toured the villages of central Europe, gathering, transcribing and recording hundreds of melodies and folk songs.
This ethnomusicological work gave birth to uniquely coloured new masterpieces, and we want to add our own contribution to the treasury of the string quartet repertoire by exploring afresh the possibilities of interaction between music of the oral tradition and the art of the string quartet.
And so we have chosen five superb artists from a range of diverse backgrounds – Kinan Azmeh, Vincent Peirani, Kevin Seddiki, Vincent Segal and Gabriel Sivak – giving each one a commission inspired by musical worlds with which they have a close relationship.
In view of the novelty of the ideas involved, we have enlisted the acute hearing and expertise of Vincent Segal, a unique practitioner of the cello, who has accompanied us in our instrumental and musical research.
In the course of this Itinéraire, there will be a halt at ‘Escalay’ (‘The Water Wheel’) – by Hamza El Din – with a brief nod in the direction of our illustrious elder brethren, the Kronos Quartet.”
Les Voce
CONTACT
DONATE
The Quatuor Voce in Vendôme (photo credit : Laurence Mary)
DONATE TO THE “association les voce”
The “Association Les Voce” was set up to support the various projects run by the Quatuor Voce. Over the past few years we have developed it’s activity to include ambitious projects centered around two main activities of the quartet :
coaching and mentoring for young string quartets and chamber ensembles
commissioning new works for string quartet from leading composers of today
If you would like to be a part of this adventure, please consider making a donation !
CHAMBER MUSIC ACADEMY “QUATUOR À VENDÔME”
Throughout the early years of the Quatuor Voce, we were incredibly privileged to benefit from invaluable advice and a close professional relationship with members of both the Alban Berg and Ysaÿe string quartets. This time of intense study and growth was an essential part of the first steps we took onto the international stage, and continues to mark each of us today.
Over the past decade, teaching has become an integral part of our quartet life. Since 2021 we have been professeurs at the Haute École de Musique de Genève in Switzerland, taking over from the legendary violinist Gabor Takács-Nagy, and in 2017 we created our own chamber music academy "Quatuor à Vendôme" in the hope of continuing this process with the upcoming generation of string quartet and chamber music players.
It is our aim to make the Academy free of charge for all our students, thanks to the generous support of private patrons.
Your donation will allow one or several young musicians to attend our annual chamber music academy "Quatuor à Vendôme" free of charge. For more details on the Academy, please refer to the dedicated section of this page : Quatuor à Vendôme.
For patrons fiscally resident in France, within the framework of French tax legislation, donations made to the Association Les Voce give the right to a significant tax credit, 66% for individuals and 60% for businesses. As an example : If you are an individual, a donation of 1000€ is reduced to 340€ after deduction. If you are a company, a donation of €15,000 is reduced to 6000€ after deduction.
Commissioning new works
Working with French composer Yves Balmer for the recording of his string quartet “Fragments soulevés par le vent” in 2021 (photo credit : Maxime de Bollivier)
Since the beginning of the Quatuor Voce in 2004 we have always believed that our passion for the great string quartet repertoire from Haydn, Mozart and Schubert, through Brahms to Bartok and Ligeti (to name just a few) should also be reflected in our curiosity for the works of living composers. We hope that by commissioning new works for string quartet we will, in our own small way, be able to contribute something to the heritage of future generations of string quartet players.
From commissions by instrumentalists from the world music tradition and arrangements for string quartet of great classics, to commissions from both up-and-coming composers and well-established names, our choice of musical collaborators reflect the diversity of our interests.
Recent projects have included the commissioning of works by eclectic French cellist Vincent Segal, Syrian clarinettist Kinan Azmeh, Argentinian pianist and composer Gabriel Sivak, and French composers Yves Balmer and Bruno Mantovani.
If you would like to be a part of bringing life to new works for string quartet, please consider making a donation !
“Beth Klang” by Vincent Segal - commissioned by the Quatuor Voce in 2017