Sacconi Quartet

Saturday January 31st 2026, 7:30pm

Haydn: Quartet Op 33, no 3, ‘The Bird’
Freya Waley-Cohen: new piece
Beethoven: Op 132

For over two decades, the Sacconi Quartet have been captivating audiences with their unanimous and compelling ensemble, consistently communicating with a fresh and imaginative approach. Formed in 2001, the four founder members share an unwavering passion for the string quartet repertoire, infectiously reaching out to audiences with their energy and enthusiasm. The Sacconis enjoy a busy international career, performing regularly across the world, at Europe’s major venues, in recordings and on radio broadcasts. The Sacconi is Quartet in Association at the Royal College of Music and Quartet in Residence for the town of Folkestone. Unchanged since its inception, Sacconi is Britain’s longest-established string quartet. The Sacconi’s prolific recording career covers a broad swathe of repertoire from Haydn to present day. Their most recent double-album release Loosening features premiere recordings of five major works of Graham Fitkin. In Damascus, their album of music by Jonathan Dove including In Damascus, commissioned by the quartet, and featuring Mark Padmore and Charles Owen, hit the Classical Top Ten, and was chosen as one of Gramophone Magazine’s Recordings of the Year: “This important release cannot be recommended too highly”. Their complete recording of Graham Fitkin’s string quartets and their collection of Roxanna Panufnik’s chamber works entitled Heartfelt were released to critical acclaim, and will be followed next year by a further album of Dove. They celebrated their twenty-first anniversary with another Top Ten release of Beethoven’s opus 131 alongside Schubert’s Death and the Maiden, and their recording of Taneyev and Schumann’s piano quintets with Peter Donohoe is released on Signum.

Champions of new music, the Sacconis have given over thirty world premieres. This January, they gave the first UK premiere in twenty years of Terry Riley’s Sun Rings – his seminal work for string quartet, chorus, samples and pre-recorded track – becoming the first quartet to perform it since Kronos Quartet. For their twentieth anniversary, the Quartet commissioned Jonathan Dove’s second quartet On the Streets and In the Sky, now released on Signum Records. Their film of Dove’s first quartet Out of Time was released on Amazon in 2021. They continue to give fully staged performances of Beethoven’s late quartets, entirely from memory, in collaboration with theatre director Tom Morris.

As the result of a generous grant, the Sacconi Quartet are Quartet in Residence for the town of Folkestone and its surrounding areas. This is enabling creative collaborations with local artists and projects, and includes an embedded outreach programme. Performances of Beethoven on the Beach and Glass on the Warren seafront have attracted large audiences, many of them experiencing the energy of chamber music for the very first time. Their Sacconi Chamber Music Festival in Folkestone is firmly established among the UK’s major chamber music festivals and attracts audiences from far and near for its vibrant atmosphere and dynamic programming.

The name Sacconi Quartet comes from the outstanding twentieth-century Italian luthier and restorer Simone Sacconi, whose book The Secrets of Stradivari is considered an indispensable reference for violin makers. Ben Hancox plays a 1932 Sacconi violin and Robin Ashwell a 1934 Sacconi viola, both made in New York. Hannah Dawson plays a 1927 Sacconi violin made in Rome, and Cara Berridge plays a Nicolaus Gagliano cello from 1781. Their gratitude extends to the Royal Society of Musicians and Ellen Solomon for generously providing them with these exceptional instruments.