Helene Pohl, Violin Douglas Beilman, Violin Gillian Ansell, Viola Rolf Gjelsten, Cello
Acclaimed for its powerful communication, dramatic energy, and beauty of sound, the New Zealand String Quartet has distinguished itself internationally for its imaginative and unique programming, including cycles of composers’ music from Mozart to Berg, and the championing of works from New Zealand and the Pacific Rim. They have won praise for their versatility in performing with jazz artists and indigenous musicians as well as for their fresh approach to the great classics of the quartet repertoire.
The quartet has made acclaimed débuts in London at the Wigmore Hall, and in New York at the prestigious Frick Collection, and has undertaken concert tours of Korea, North America, and Mexico, including two concerts at the Cervantino International Festival, with some forty concerts in New Zealand alone. The New Zealand String Quartet has been featured on North America’s popular public radio programme St Paul Sunday, and has recorded for Deutsche Welle, CBC in Canada, and Australia’s ABC, as well as regularly appearing on Radio New Zealand’s fine music network Concert FM.
Their extensive discography includes works from the standard quartet repertoire by composers such as Bartók, Ravel, Debussy, Beethoven, Dvořák, Berg and Wolf, as well as the première recording of the remarkable Zoltan Székely quartet, and numerous works by acclaimed New Zealand composers. They recently began a three-year project for the Naxos label, which will release their complete Mendelssohn quartets.
The ensemble’s innovative collaborations have included performances of concertos with the BBC Scottish Symphony, the Auckland Chamber Orchestra and the New Zealand Symphony Orchestras. They have performed with a number of internationally renowned artists. Dedicated teachers as well as performers, the group has been Quartet-in-Residence at Victoria University of Wellington, now the New Zealand School of Music, since 1991. In North America they have been artist/teachers-in-residence at the Banff Center, Quartet Fest West, and the Quartet Programme at Bucknell in Pennsylvania.
