RTÉ Vanbrugh Quartet
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RTÉ Vanbrugh Quartet (Gregory Ellis, Keith Pascoe - violins; Simon Aspell - viola; Christopher Marwood - cello) is the resident string quartet to Radio Telefís Éireann, Ireland's national broadcasting service, and Artists in residence to University College Cork and founders of the internationally acclaimed West Cork Chamber Music Festival.
The RTÉ Vanbrugh Quartet shot to fame winning the 1988 London International String Quartet Competition and, now in its twenty-first concert season, is one of Europe's most successful quartets, internationally recognised for its beauty of sound, clarity of texture and integrity of interpretation within an unusually wide and varied range of repertoire.
Familiar visitors to all the main UK festivals the Vanbrugh Quartet also broadcasts frequently for BBC Radio 3 and performs regularly at London’s Wigmore Hall and South Bank.
The Quartet enjoys a thriving international career with past appearances including concerts in Berlin (Konzerthaus), Amsterdam (Concertgebouw), Hungary (Liszt Academy), Poland (Lancut Festival), Spain (Galicia Festival), Flanders Festival, Menuhin Festival, Gstaad plus numerous visits to Scandinavia where recordings were made of the complete Beethoven quartets. The quartet tours the USA on a regular basis with performances in Carnegie Hall, New York and the Kennedy Center in Washington.
Hyperion released two Vanbrugh Quartet CDs of chamber music by Charles Villiers Stanford. The Quartet’s recent recording of three of Boccherini’s cello quintets on Hyperion was featured as Editor’s Choice in Gramophone Magazine.
Other recent CDs include Metronome’s second CD devoted to the music of Belfast composer Piers Hellawell, a Black Box release of Ian Wilson's three quartets and a recording for Hyperion of works for quartet and soprano by John Tavener. These recordings join a discography of twenty-one releases which includes the complete Beethoven Quartets and works by Haydn, Schubert, Dvořák, Janáček, Dohnányi, E.J. Moeran, Robert Simpson, John Tavener, John McCabe, John Kinsella, Raymond Deane, Brian Boydell and Walter Beckett.
