Hannah Dawson (violin) Robin Ashwell (viola) and Cara Berridge (cello) and Ben Hancox (violin)
Since its formation at the Royal College of Music in 2001, the Sacconi Quartet has established a secure and substantial reputation. The Quartet is recognised for its unanimous and compelling ensemble, performing with style and commitment and consistently communicating with a fresh and imaginative approach. Its four founder members demonstrate a shared passion for string quartet repertoire, infectiously reaching out to audiences with their energy and enthusiasm. Over the past decade they have enjoyed a highly successful international career, performing regularly throughout Europe, at London’s major venues, in recordings and radio broadcasts. The Sacconi is Quartet in Association at the Royal College of Music and Quartet in Residence at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre.
The Sacconi Quartet is renowned for its vigorous and individual approach to music-making. In 2008, the Quartet held the inaugural Sacconi Chamber Music Festival in Folkestone, Kent. Now in its fourth year, the festival is an established event in the cultural calendar and is expanding year on year with challenging programming and exciting collaborations. The Sacconi Quartet has performed at all the major London venues including Wigmore Hall, Kings Place, Cadogan Hall, Purcell Room and Conway Hall. They have travelled extensively throughout the rest of the UK and Europe to venues including Bridgewater Hall in Manchester, Musikverein in Vienna, Muziekgebouw in Amsterdam, L’Auditori in Barcelona and Auditorio Nacional de Música in Madrid as well as many venues in Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, France, Finland, Norway and the Czech Republic. In 2008 the Sacconi made their debut at the Liceo de Cámara Madrid, and in 2009 at the Concerts du Midi, Brussels and the Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in Germany. The Quartet also made their first visit to the Middle East in 2009, where they were invited by the British Council to give concerts and workshops in Jordan’s capital city, Amman.
Highlights of the current season have so far included the completion of their Beethoven cycle at the Canterbury Festival and a continuing focus on the great Czech works for string quartet. Having curated a week of concerts there in 2009, the Sacconi are now in the middle of their second major project at Kings Place; performing the great Piano Quintets over two years with pianist Simon Crawford-Phillips. They recently made their Cheltenham Festival debut, performing the première of pianist Gwilym Simcock’s new Piano Quintet, and returned to the Wigmore Hall to perform Elgar’s Introduction and Allegro with the Southbank Sinfonia. Earlier this season BBC Radio 3 broadcast one of the Sacconi’s concerts from the Music in May Festival in St Ives and later on this year the Quartet will release their next two discs which will feature quartets by Dvorak, Smetana and Suk, as well as a full disc of Beethoven quartets. To date the Quartet has given thirteen world premières and three British premières, including quartets by György Kurtág, Robin Holloway, John Metcalf and Alun Hoddinot, and recently they performed as the solo string quartet on Paul McCartney’s new song Come Home. The Sacconi Quartet has been mentored by eminent musicians, including Gabor Takács-Nagy, Christopher Rowland and Levon Chilingirian, and has been joined on stage by Ian Brown, Raphael Wallfisch, Martin Roscoe, David Campbell, Lawrence Power, Robert Cohen, Guy Johnston, Alasdair Beatson, Tom Poster, Matthew Rose and actor Timothy West.
The Sacconi won First Prize at the Trondheim International String Quartet Competition and the Kurtág Prize at the Bordeaux International String Quartet Competition in 2005, as well as First Prize in the Royal Over-Seas League Chamber Music Competition. The Quartet won Second Prize, the Sidney Griller Award and the Esterhazy Prize at the 2006 London International String Quartet Competition. In 2006 they were also awarded an Angel Award by The Herald newspaper for outstanding performances in the Edinburgh Festival and nominated for a Royal Philharmonic Society Award.
The Sacconi Quartet has its own, highly successful, record label. Sacconi Records is expanding by one or two releases each year. Their debut recording of Haydn’s opus 54 quartets received widespread critical acclaim and recently, both their Ravel and Haydn discs were featured in The Full Works programme on Classic FM. Their 2006 recording of Finzi’s song cycle By Footpath and Stile with baritone Roderick Williams for Naxos was well received in all the national broadsheets and BBC Music Magazine.
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. Hancox plays an 18th century Italian violin on loan from an anonymous owner, and Dawson an unknown Italian from 1750. Ashwell plays a large Sacconi viola made in New York in 1934 and Berridge a Nicolaus Gagliano cello from 1781, both generously on loan to them.