Minguet Quartet

Saturday 28th February 2026

Ulrich Isfort, 1st Violin Annette Reisinger, 2nd Violin Aida-Carmen Soanea, Viola Matthias Diener, Violoncello

The Minguet Quartet – founded in 1988 – is today one of the most internationally sought-after string quartets and performs in all the world’s major concert halls, its interpretations, as passionate as they are intelligent, always ensuring inspiring listening experiences – “for the joy of sound and expression with which the ensemble brings the works to life enlivens even the smallest detail” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung). The quartet is named after Pablo Minguet, a Spanish philosopher of the 18th century, who in his writings endeavored to make the fine arts accessible to the general public: The Minguet Quartet is more committed than ever to this idea.

The Minguet Quartet was a guest at the Salzburg Festival for the seventh time in 2024, having already made its debut there in 2004. In 2025, the ensemble will perform at venues including the Robert-Schumann-Saal in Düsseldorf, the Diligentia Theatre in The Hague and the Fruchthalle in Kaiserslautern, at the Raderberg Concerts of Deutschlandfunk Cologne, the Société de Musique Contemporaine Lausanne, the Bodenseefestival and the Schwetzinger Mozart Festival. Highlights of the year 2024 were: Wiener Konzerthaus, Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, Ludwigsburger Schlossfestspiele, Tonhalle Düsseldorf, Festspiele Europäische Wochen Passau, Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, Flagey Brussels Klarafestival and Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian Lisbon. Projects in 2022 & 2023 included concerts at the Prinzregententheater München, Gewandhaus Leipzig, Arnold Schönberg Center Wien, Meistersingerhalle Nürnberg, Alte Oper Frankfurt, L’association Pour l’Art Lausanne, Meister- und Kammerkonzerte Innsbruck, Schumannfest Düsseldorf, Fondazione Prometeo Parma and Festival Spinacorona Napoli. Previous seasons have taken the ensemble to the Cologne and Berlin Philharmonie, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Library of Congress and International Gallery Washington DC, Konzerthaus Berlin, Wiener Konzerthaus, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, De Doelen Rotterdam, BOZAR Music Brussels, Théâtre des Abbesses Paris, Lincoln Center New York, SouthBank Centre London and The University of Hong Kong, Festival d’Automne Paris, Grafenegg Festival, Beethovenfest Bonn, Mozartfest Würzburg, International Brucknerfest Linz, Rheingau Music Festival, Tongyeong International Music Festival Korea, Herrenchiemsee Festival, Schwetzingen Festival, Chamber Music Week Schloss Elmau and the International Mozarteum Foundation Salzburg, as well as to other festivals and major concert halls in Europe, Japan, Central and South America, Canada and the USA.

The Minguet Quartet focuses on classical-romantic literature as well as modern music in equal measure and is committed to 21st century compositions through numerous world premieres. Encounters with important composers of our time inspire the four musicians to constantly develop new programme ideas. The first complete recording of the string quartets by Wolfgang Rihm, Peter Ruzicka and Jörg Widmann are among their most important projects, continued by the sound documentation of the monumental 2nd String Quartet by Manfred Trojahn and a portrait CD of the composer and OPUS KLASSIK 2023 prize winner Konstantia Gourzi on the ECM label. Outstanding highlight of recent years was the performance of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Helicopter String Quartet as part of a concept by conductor Kent Nagano.

The programme for 2024 and 2025 will focus on the milestone birthdays of Anton Bruckner, Josef Suk, Arnold Schönberg, Luigi Nono, Luciano Berio, Toshio Hosokawa and Maurice Ravel.

Current partners of the Minguet Quartet include the soprano Anna Prohaska, the pianists Alexander Krichel, Gülru Ensari and Herbert Schuch, the piano duo Yaara Tal & Andreas Groethuysen, the clarinettist Matthias Schorn, the violinist Ioana Cristina Goicea, the violist Matthias Buchholz, the cellist Jens Peter Maintz and the actor Sabin Tambrea. The ensemble has performed as a soloist quartet with the WDR Rundfunkchor, the DSO, SR, hr, WDR and ORF radio symphony orchestras as well as the Brucknerorchester Linz and the Nürnberger Symphoniker under the conductors Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Markus Stenz, Peter Ruzicka and Ilan Volkov.

With the complete CD recording of the string quartet literature by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Josef Suk, Heinrich von Herzogenberg and Emil Nikolaus von Reznicek, the Minguet Quartet presents its great musical sound culture and opens up the discovery of impressive music of the Romantic period to the audience. In 2022 the complete recording of the works for string quartet by Walter Braunfels and a CD with piano chamber music by Ferdinand Hiller were released, followed in 2023 by music by Heinrich Kaminski in combination with the unique string quartet by Glenn Gould. In the upcoming years, the Minguet Quartet will present works by Alberto Evaristo Ginastera and the String Quartet by Maurice Ravel, among others, on CD.

The Minguet Quartet was awarded the coveted ECHO Klassik in 2010 and the prestigious French Diapason d’Or of the Year 2015, in 2020 it received the RELOAD scholarship from the German Federal Cultural Foundation. As a relevant and important cultural institution, the Minguet Quartet was selected in 2022 to realize its project EifelKlang in cooperation with NEUSTART KULTUR – Die Beauftragte der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien. In 2024, the ensemble was an ambassador for Schönberg150 and member of the Artistic Committee of Honour of the Arnold Schönberg Center Vienna. A long-standing and regular cooperation partner of the Minguet Quartet for numerous innovative projects in Germany and abroad is the Kunststiftung NRW.