Radio 3 - New Generation Artists

Elias Quartet (2009-2011)

Elias Quartet

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Biography

Sara Bitlloch, violin
Donald Grant, violin
Martin Saving, viola
Marie Bitlloch, cello

The members of the Elias string Quartet all live in Sheffield but are originally from France, Scotland and Sweden. The Quartet was formed in 1998 at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester where they worked regularly with Dr. Christopher Rowland. They won all the RNCM quartet awards and became Junior Fellows and then "Associated Quartet". They also spent a year at the Hochschule in Cologne with the Alban Berg quartet.

The Quartet received second prize and the Sidney Griller prize at the 9th London International String Quartet Competition in 2003 (as the Johnston String Quartet). They were finalists in the Paolo Borciani Competition in 2005 and have twice been awarded scholarships from the Hattori Foundation.

They have performed extensively in the UK, and in France, Germany, Sweden, Austria, Italy, and the USA, in venues such as the Wigmore Hall, Purcell Room, Snape Maltings Concert Hall, Bridgewater Hall, Fairfield Halls, Stockholm Concert Hall, the Auditorium du Louvre, and Jordan Hall. They were Ensemble in Residence at Kettle's Yard in Cambridge in 2007 and 2008 and have broadcast live on national radio in the UK, France and Sweden. This season includes a three concert Schubert series at the Wigmore Hall, London, and a five week tour of Australia for Musica Viva. They have performed with artists such as Andrew Marriner, Ralph Kirshbaum, Joan Rogers, Mark Padmore, Roger Vignoles, Michel Dalberto, Peter Cropper, Bernard Gregor-Smith, Robin Ireland, Adrian Brendel and with the Endellion, Navarra and Vertavo quartets.

They were resident string quartet at the Britten Pears School three times where they worked closely with Hugh Maguire, the International Academy of String Quartets, the New England Conservatory in Boston and at Sheffield's Music in the Round as part of the Ensemble 360. Other mentors in the Quartet's studies include members of the Amadeus, Endellion and Vermeer Quartets, György Kurtag, Gabor Takacs-Nagy, Paul Katz, Rainer Schmidt, Kim Kashkashian and Milan Skampa.

The Quartet's most recent recording, featuring works by Mendelssohn, Mozart and Schubert for Wigmore Hall Live, has received outstanding reviews

"Many think this young quartet will be the next Amadeus, and these performances support such a view." - Michael Kennedy, The Sunday Telegraph.

Their other recordings include Mendelssohn Quartets for ASV Gold/Sanctuary Classics, a disc of French harp music with harpist Sandrine Chatron for the French label Ambroisie, and Alexander Goehr's Piano Quintet for Meridian Records.

Sara Bitlloch plays on a 1868 Vuillaume violin, and Marie Bitlloch plays on an 18th-century Italian cello, kindly lent to them by the "Fond Instrumental Français".

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