Quatuor Diotima

The Quatuor Diotima

The Quatuor Diotima’s name pays tribute to Luigi Nono’s work Fragmente Stille, an Diotima, affirming their strong commitment to the 20th-century repertoire, from Bartok and the Second Viennese School to Carter, Xenakis, Lachenmann and Ferneyhough. They have also given world premières of new works by Alain Bancquart, Brice Pauset and Suzanne Giraud. It is their aim, however, to perform contemporary music and twentieth-century classics in the context of the Classical and Romantic string quartet tradition, and be equally immersed in the works of Haydn, Beethoven, Schumann, Brahms, Dvorak et al. In this process of exploring the development of quartet repertoire from its origins to the present day, the Quatuor Diotima has been greatly assisted by the teaching of Jean Sulem and master classes with Walter Levin and the Alban Berg String Quartet.

Founded by graduates of the Paris and Lyon Conservatoires (1996), the quartet was awarded 3rd prize at the 1998 Carl Klingler Competition, Berlin, 1st prize at the FNAPEC Competition, Paris (1999), and the Contempo-rary Music Prize at the London String Quartet Competition (2000). Also in 2000, at the invitation of the organization ProQuartet, they began a two-year residency at the Centre Européen de Musique de Chambre in Fontainebleau.

The Quatuor Diotima has performed all over France and at major venues/events in Paris including the Auditorium du Louvre, Festival d’Automne, Musée d’Orsay, Festival Présences and the Salle Gaveau. They have also given concerts for the Berlin Philharmonie, Zurich New Music Days, Ars Musica Brussels, Gulbenkian Foundation Lisbon, and in Italy, Spain and Venezuela.