Quatuor Modigliani, Hélène Clément, Antoine Lederlin
Biography Quatuor Modigliani, Hélène Clément, Antoine Lederlin
Antoine Lederlin
Born in 1975, French cellist Antoine Lederlin studied at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in Paris, where he completed the cycle de perfectionnement in 1995 as a pupil of Ronald Pidoux. He has also received coaching from Janos Starker, Anner Bylsma, Henri Dutilleux and Isaac Stern.
At 20 he became the solo cellist in the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and principal cellist in the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monaco and Lorin Maazel’s Orchestra Filarmonica Arturo Toscanini.
He is currently principal cellist in Sinfonieorchester Basel. He has appeared as orchestral soloist and chamber musician, performing at the major French festivals and also at the Ravinia Festival in the USA. He has recorded the Schoeck concerto with the Orchestre d’Auvergne and Armin Jordan. In 2006 Antoine joined the Belcea Quartet.
Hélène Clément
Born in France in 1988, Hélène Clément has learned to combine her proud love for french wine with the cheese delicacies found in England when she moved to London in 2013. Her ferocious enthusiasm and thirst for the chamber music and viola repertoire leads her to constantly expand her musical horizons by performing with a wide range of different collaborations, playing in the most prestigious concert halls in Europe and around the World.
Following her passion as a chamber musician, she has performed at the Queen Elizabeth Hall and the Wigmore Hall in London, Carnegie Hall in New York, the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Konzerthaus in Berlin, the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, the Salle Cortot and Cité de la Musique in Paris.Her chamber music partners have included Nicolas Altstaedt, Jonathan Biss, Benjamin Grosvenor, Elisabeth Leonskaja, Alexander Melnikov, Mitsuko Uchida and Peter Wispelwey, as well as the Brentano String Quartet and the Nash Ensemble.
Since September 2013, she is the viola player of the Doric String Quartet, with which she fulfils her appetite for deep explorations of the repertoire, from Haydn String Quartets to newly commissioned pieces. Recent highlights include recitals at the Amsterdam Muziekgebouw, Vienna Musikverein, Frankfurt Alte Oper, Hamburg Laeiszhalle and De Singel, and regular performances at the Wigmore Hall. Further afield they have toured to Japan, Israel, Australia, America, Asia and New Zealand.
The Quartet has released a wide range of recordings, working exclusively with Chandos Records. Their most recent releases include works by Haydn, Britten and Mendelssohn. Ms. Clément is a frequent guest at the prestigious Marlboro Music Festival in America and Prussia Cove in England.
She is Principal Viola Player of the innovative Aurora Orchestra based in London, taking part in exciting projects such as playing symphonies by memory and chamber music projects in the most prestigious concert halls.
She teaches viola and chamber music at the Royal Academy of Music of London. Mentoring and coaching young talents is taking a growing place in her life, and she is with her String Quartet the Artistic Director of the Mendelssohn on Mull Festival, a position that sees her play a key role in providing young professionals in the field of chamber music with a week of intensive mentoring, coaching and development.
Ms Clement is currently playing on a 1843 Italian viola owned previously by Benjamin Britten and Frank Bridge. The viola is generously lent to her by the Britten-Pears foundation.
Quatuor Modigliani
Founded in 2003, the Quatuor Modigliani is recognised as one of today’s most sought- after quartets, regularly performing in leading international concert series and on the world’s most prestigious stages.
Starting from the 2025/26 season, the Quatuor Modigliani will be the artist-in-resident at Radio France in Paris. As part of this residency, the quartet will give two string quartet concerts annually, as well as a chamber performance with guest musicians. The residency will culminate in the premiere of a commissioned work by composer Philippe Manoury.
Other highlights of the upcoming season include a North American tour in Autumn 2025, with performances at prestigious venues such as Carnegie Hall and the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia. An extensive tour of Asia will follow, featuring concerts in South Korea, China, and Singapore. In Europe, the quartet will perform at major venues including the Alte Oper in Frankfurt, Laeiszhalle in Hamburg, the Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon, or the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.
In 2020, the quartet became artistic director of the string quartet festival “Vibre! Quatuors à Bordeaux” as well as the renowned “The Bordeaux International String Quartet Competition.” The quartet is the founder and artistic director since 2011 of the Saint-Paul-de-Vence Festival. Since Autumn 2023, they have been mentors at the École Normale de Musique de Paris Alfred Cortot.
The Quatuor Modigliani has been recording for the Mirare label since 2008 and has released 13 award-winning albums. In January 2024, the quartet’s latest album with string quartets by Grieg and Smetana was released and received enthusiastically by the international press: “The French Quatuor Modigliani brings these highly emotional works to life with energy, color and glowing passion.” (Rondo, January 2024) The recording was also featured in the bestseller list 2-2024 (category chamber music) at the “Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik”. Since 2024, the Quatuor Modigliani is dedicating itself to the greatest challenge in the life of a string quartet: recording all 16 string quartets by Beethoven.
Thanks to the generosity and support of private sponsors, the Quatuor Modigliani plays on four outstanding Italian instruments:
Amaury Coeytaux plays a 1715 violin by Stradivari, Loïc Rio plays a 1780 violin by Giovanni Battista Guadagnini, Laurent Marfaing plays a 1660 viola by Luigi Mariani, François Kieffer plays a 1706 cello by Matteo Goffriller.“
