About
The Schumann Quartet has reached a stage where anything is possible, because it has dispensed with certainties. This also has consequences for audiences, which from one concert to the next have to be prepared for all eventualities. This live situation will gain an added energy in the near future: Sabine Meyer, Menahem Pressler, Andreas Ottensamer and Anna Lucia Richter are among the quartet's current partners.
A highlight in the 18/19 season is its three-year residency at the Chamber Music Society of the Lincoln Center in New York City, which began back in December 2016. Furthermore, the quartet will go on tour in Israel and twice in the US, will give guest performances at festivals in Germany, Austria, France, the Netherlands and Bulgaria and will also perform concerts in the big musical metropolises of London, Amsterdam, Vienna, Hamburg and Berlin. In addition, the ensemble is ‘artiste étoile’ at the Oraniensteiner Konzerte and is looking forward to their two annual concerts as part of its long-term residency at the Robert-Schumann-Saal in Düsseldorf.
After three multiple award-winning recordings, the current album ‘Intermezzo’ with works by Robert Schumann, Aribert Reimann and Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy was released in 2018 together with soprano Anna-Lucia Richter and has been hailed enthusiastically both at home and abroad.
The three brothers Mark, Erik and Ken Schumann have been playing together since their earliest childhood. In 2012, they were joined by violist Liisa Randalu, who was born in the Estonian capital, Tallinn, and grew up in Karlsruhe, Germany. Those who experience the quartet in performance often remark on the strong connection between its members. The four musicians enjoy the way they communicate without words. Although the individual personalities clearly manifest themselves, a common space arises in every musical work in a process of spiritual metamorphosis. The quartet's openness and curiosity may be partly the result of the formative influence exerted on it by teachers such as Eberhard Feltz, the Alban Berg Quartet, or partners such as Menahem Pressler.
Teachers and musical partners, prestigious prices, CD releases – it is always tempting to speculate on what factors have led to many people viewing the Schumann Quartet as one of the best in the world. But the four musicians themselves regard these stages more as encounters, as a confirmation of the path they have taken. They feel that their musical development over the past two years represents a quantum leap. They charmingly sidestep any attempt to categorise their sound, approach or style, and let the concerts speak for themselves. And the critics approve