We are delighted to welcome on their first visit to the Richmond Concert Society this brilliant young Czech string quartet who are making a major name for themselves and whose recent Wigmore Hall concert was greeted with much acclaim.

The Pavel Haas were the winners of the 2005 Borciani competition and have in recent times performed at several major venues. They have played at the Palais des Beaux Arts, Brussels, Teatro all Pergola, Florence and the Teatro La Fenice, Venice and have given concerts for the NDR in Hamburg. Last year the quartet gave their debut tour of the USA. This year, apart from their Wigmore Hall concert, they are also performing at the Cheltenham Festival, at Fontainebleau in France, at the Musée du Louvre in Paris and at the Prague Spring Festival as well as undertaking further tours of Germany, Italy, the UK and Japan.

The Strad magazine in September 2005 forecast that ‘by this time next year they will be a household name’ — a very accurate and perceptive comment.

The quartet takes its name from the Czech composer Pavel Haas who tragically died at Auschwitz in 1944. Much influenced by the great Czech composer Janáček, his legacy includes three wonderful string quartets, two of which have been recorded by the Pavel Haas Quartet. They will be performing the first quartet in their RCS concert.

They will also perform Prokofiev’s rarely performed first quartet and will conclude their concert with one of the greatest quartets in the chamber music repertoire — the A minor quartet Opus 132 by Beethoven.