Behn Quartet

The Behn Quartet is formed of players from England, the Netherlands, Portugal and New Zealand. Winners of the Orlando International Chamber Music Competition, they are currently an Associate Ensemble at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, and previously held the CAVATINA Chamber Music Fellowship at the Royal Academy of Music in London. They take their name from Aphra Behn, the seventeenth-century playwright, political activist, and philanthropist of the arts.

Since their formation in 2015 the Behn Quartet has given recitals across Europe, at venues including the Wigmore Hall and the Concertgebouw, at the West Cork Chamber Music Festival, the String Quartet Biennale Amsterdam, the Fondazione Cini Venice and at the Filarmonica Laudamo Messina in association with Le Dimore del Quartetto. They also gave a highly acclaimed tour as 2018 Encompass Artists with Chamber Music New Zealand, reviewed in the New Zealand Herald as ‘a performance that left the audience silently spellbound for several seconds before bursting into enthusiastic applause, recognising the magic cast throughout the auditorium by this talented quartet.’

Contemporary music has an important place within their repertoire; they gave the world premiere of Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’ final work at his Memorial Concert in St John’s Smith Square and live on BBC Radio 3, and have recorded chamber works by Maxwell Davies, Stravinsky and Birtwistle for Linn Records, conducted by the late Oliver Knussen.

The Behn Quartet are generously supported by Help Musicians UK, the De Lancey & De La Hanty Foundation, and the CAVATINA Chamber Music Trust. The Quartet plays instruments and bows kindly on loan by the Harrison Frank Foundation and Hurwitz Fine Instruments.