The New Hellenic Quartet, founded in 1991, is considered today to be Greece’s foremost chamber ensemble. The main core of its repertoire encompasses both the classical string quartet repertoire and works of Greek composers for this medium. Their concert activity has taken them to various European cities and Festivals, including the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, the Beethoven Festwochen in Bohn, the Vaughan Williams Festival in London, the Music Harvest 2000 in Odense and the International Symposium Schönberg in Berlin in Vienna.
In 1999, the fiftieth anniversary of Nikos Skalkottas’ death, the New Hellenic Quartet, with the support of the Foundation for Hellenic Culture, performed a series of concerts in various European cities including London, Paris, Vienna, Berlin, Düsseldorf, Stockholm and Belgrade to present the string quartets by this major Greek composer.
In 2000 the Quartet presented in Athens Megaron the complete works of the eminent Greek composers Yorgho Sicilianos and Dimitris Dragatakis who dedicated to the Quartet their very last works. In 2001 the Quartet was awarded the “Great Prize for Music” from the “Union of Greek critics for Music and Drama”. In recent years, the New Hellenic Quartet has undertaken major tours in China, U.S.A., Brazil and throughout Europe. During 2006, they presented the complete cycle of Beethoven Quartets in Athens.
In addition, the ensemble has an extensive recording history which includes, among others, all of the quartets of Nikos Skalkottas, all of the quartets of Yorgo Sicilianos, plus the complete early works of Carls Nielsen. All of these recordings have been released internationally, to critical acclaim. In particular, the Skalkottas were listed among the BBC’s top 100, drawn from all styles of music. The recent CD, which includes Respighi’s quartets, was named “reference recording” for this composer’s works by Klassik.com, a sentiment echoed by Strad magazine which named it the chamber music CD choice for October, 2006.
‘New Hellenic Quartet”
Georgios Demertzis, violin
Dimitris Chandrakis, violin
David Bogorad, viola
Angelos Liakakis, cello