THE VAN Kuijk Quartet are up in the Leamington Music International String Quartet Concerts series at the Pump Rooms on November 4.
The French quartet won the 2015 London International String Quartet Competition and since being made BBC New Generation Artists, has often been heard on Radio 3.
The Pump Rooms programme will consist of the two best known quartets by French composers, Debussy and Ravel, complemented by three Melodies by Poulenc.
Festival director Richard Phillips said: “This is the first French string quartet that Leamington Music has put on in the ten years that we have been going.
“We have had the Debussy and Ravel quartets performed in that time, but French quartets have a very distinctive sound and so it will great to hear that again. I am intrigued too by the Poulenc Melodies that we have been offered.”
The Paris-based quartet comes to Leamington as part of a national tour organised for winners of the London Competition. Leamington Music always participates in these tours and regularly puts on past winners.
The International String Quartet Concerts series at the Royal Pump Rooms continues on November 25 when the Elias Quartet with the Bitlloch sisters Sara and Marie, who are also French. That concert will be recorded by BBC Radio 3 and transmitted the following week.
In the New Year the series has the Royal Quartet from Poland, the Stamic from the Czech Republic and the leading British quartet, the Brodsky, finishes the season on March 24.
Leamington Music’s current winter season has 22 concerts in all, including a monthly early music series in St Mary’s Church Warwick and a highlight of the season is coming up in Warwick, when, the baritone Roderick Williams sings Schubert’s cycle Winterreise on November 13 in the King’s High School Performance Hall.
Tickets for all these concerts are on sale at www.royalspacentreandtownhall.co.uk or call 01926 334418.
Visit www.leamingtonmusic.org for full programme details.
