Benda Quartet, Arneis Quartet, and Sirius Quartet
Biography Benda Quartet, Arneis Quartet, and Sirius Quartet
Arneis Quartet
Known for playing with “a unique collective sound which is as warm and full of sparkle as liquid gold” (Boston Musical Intelligencer), the Boston-based Arneis Quartet has brought their energetic approach and adventurous programming to traditional concert venues as well as salon-style concerts and community engagement activities since 2009. Collaborating with living composers serves as a key part of the quartet’s artistic mission.
Benda Quartet
Since the Benda Quartet began performing in 2012 they have achieved a wide variety of musical successes and established themselves among highly respected Czech ensembles. Their first significant landmark was the concert debut they performed at the 60th Jubilee of the Janacek Philharmonic Orchestra in Ostrava in April 2014. The concert was recorded by Czech Radio and garnered a huge audience acclaim. Since then has the collaboration with the studio of Czech Radio continued on regular basis and resulted in a number of publicly appreciated recordings. The Benda Quartet have worked intensively together with the Janáček Philharmonic Orchestra and artist management agency Janáčkův Máj on numerous chamber music and educational projects. This successfully developing collaboration brought the Benda Quartet on stage of major festivals in the Czech republic such as The Leoš Janáček International Music Festival, Czech Philharmonics Chamber Music Series, International Music Competition and Festival Beethoven´s Hradec, Mahler´s Jihlava Music Festival, St. Wenceslas Music Festival, Music Festival of Peter Dvorský, International Festival of Contemporary Arts Forfest, Creative Centre of Contemporary Music Ostrava etc.. The Benda Quartet successfully introduced themselves in abroad too, most recently they performed together with The Kelemen Quartet Mendelssohn´s String Octet at St. Gellért International Music Festival in Szeged (Hungary). The Benda Quartet was awarded The ‘Amber’ Prize of Moravian-Silesian region in 2019.
Sirius Quartet
combines exhilarating repertoire with unequaled improvisational fire. These conservatory-trained performer-composers shine with precision, soul and raw energy, championing a forward-thinking, genre-defying approach.
Since their debut concert at the original Knitting Factory in New York City, Sirius has played some of the most important venues in the world, including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, the Beijing Music Festival, the Cologne Music Triennale, the Beethoven-Haus Bonn, Stuttgart Jazz, Musique Actuelle in Canada, the Taichung Jazz Fest — Taiwan’s biggest jazz event — and many others.
Sirius continues their commitment to musical innovation with original works by its own members, pushing beyond the conventions of string instruments by incorporating gripping improvisations and an undeniable modern groove. In 2019, they premiered their new program and album New World, a politically-charged work that explores themes of immigration, discrimination, and social change. The album was released August 23, 2019 on ZOHO Records. The album and its program is both an impassioned lament for the state of a nation and beyond, and a beautiful and hopeful call to action.
In the fall of 2022, Sirius made their Carnegie Hall debut premiering new works from their Navona Records PLAYING ON THE EDGE series, of which Gramophone Magazine writes, “On the evidence of their playing on this fascinating disc from Navona, the Sirius Quartet are a fine, adaptable ensemble and contemporary music specialists.” They also performed several of their own original works on the program.
For the past 8 years, Sirius has curated and run the Progressive Chamber Music Festival in NYC and Munich, featuring like-minded musicians and ensembles who blur genre lines and challenge preconceived ideas of what chamber music can be, including David Krakauer and Kathleen Tagg, Theo Bleckman and Ben Monder, Craig Taborn, Mat Maneri, Billy Martin, Mark Feldman, and Erik Friedlander, among many others.
