Malvern Concert Club: The Piatti Quartet

The Piatti Quartet are one of the most distinguished quartets of their generation. Prize-winners at the 2015 Wigmore Hall International String Quartet Competition, they have performed in all the major venues and festivals around the UK, and given concerts throughout the world.

The Piattis are renowned for their diverse programming and for passionate interpretations across the spectrum of quartet writing. They are particularly known for expanding the quartet genre through their collaborations with leading British composers. Recent recordings include discs of works by Vaughan Williams (Hyperion) and Gavin Higgins. Their premiere of a new string quartet by Emily Howard at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw in April 2021 (a Concertgebouw co-commission) was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The Quartet previously commissioned Joseph Phibbs’ String Quartet No.1 and released a disc for the Champs Hill label featuring this work alongside the premiere recording of Mark Anthony Turnage’s Twisted Blues with Twisted Ballad, with classics by Britten and Bridge.

Other current commissions and recent premieres include new works by Mark Anthony Turnage (having premiered his fourth string quartet, Winter’s Edge, at the Klarafestival, Brussels in 2019), Darren Bloom, Simon Holt, Freya Waley-Cohen and Jacques Cohen.

At the 2015 Wigmore Hall International String Quartet Competition, the Piatti Quartet won 2nd Prize as well as the St. Lawrence SQ prize and the Sidney Griller Award for the best performance of Mark-Anthony Turnage’s ‘Contusion’.

The Piatti Quartet takes its name from the great 19th-century cellist Alfredo Piatti, who was a leading professor and exponent of chamber music at the Royal Academy of Music.

• Vaughan Williams Three Preludes (from Household Music)
• Mendelssohn String Quartet No.1 in E flat, Op.12
• Beethoven String Quartet No.7 in F, Op.59, No.1, Razumovsky

Michael Trainor Violin
Zahra Benyounes Violin
Tetsuumi Nagata Viola
Jessie Ann Richardson Cello