Métamorphoses Quartet

Métamorphoses Quartet was born of a strong desire to explore the string quartet repertoire and, in the same musical breath, to share its rigor, richness and at times ferocity with an ever-growing audience. The result is a series of metamorphoses, similar to those recounted by Ovid in his masterpiece, to which the quartet pays tribute: fleeting, perpetual, invisible and, above all, pluralistic. A feeling of community emerges, as performers and listeners are caught up in a wider movement that transcends them; for a quartet is a four-headed beast, a protean instrument that is ‘human, all too human’, to quote Nietzsche. Finally, metamorphosis is about variation, the sculpting of emptiness by the musical element; a variation that runs through the entire history of music, in which metamorphosis acts as an etiological principle.

Quatuor Métamorphoses was able to cultivate this rigorous artistic vision with the help of its mentors: having graduated with master’s degrees in chamber music from the class of François Salque (Quatuor Ysaÿe) at the Conservatoire de Paris, they are now studying under the tutelage of Hatto Beyerle (a founding member of the legendary Alban Berg Quartett) at the European Chamber Music Academy (ECMA), of which the quartet has been an appointed member since 2018. After postgraduate studies at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna (MDW) with Johannes Meissl (2022–23), the quartet became artists in residence at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel (Belgium) under the direction of Corina Belcea, Miguel da Silva and Jean-Claude Vanden Eynden. The young musicians also receive advice from the Ebène and Modigliani Quartets at the Rencontres Musicales d’Evian, Ori Kam (Jerusalem Quartet) at the Académie Ravel, Petr Prause (Talich Quartet), Valentin Erben (Alban Berg) Quartett, Christophe Coin (Quatuor Mosaïques), Alfred Brendel, Itamar Golan and Patrick Jüdt.

Winner of the ProQuartet Prize at the FNAPEC European Competition and grant holder and laureate of the Académie Ravel, Quatuor Métamorphoses is also a laureate of the Springboard for Young Quartets of the Philharmonie de Paris and a laureate of the Fondation de l’Abbaye de Royaumont et de Villefavard.

Their career has led them to perform in the most prestigious venues: Wigmore Hall, Philharmonie de Paris, Franz Liszt Academy Budapest, Teatro Goldoni in Florence, Festival de Prades, Quatuors à Bordeaux, Potager du Roi in Versailles (invited by Gérard Caussé and Quatuor Modigliani), Festival de Cordes sur Ciel, Festival des Arcs, Festival Radio Classique, Nuit du Quatuor alongside the Hermès and Zaïde Quartets, and with François Salque, Emmanuelle Bertrand and Alexis Descharmes, as well as Roman Borisov, Aurélien Pontier and Paul Zientara.

The repertoire of Quatuor Métamorphoses ranges from the great masters of the genre to explorations of the most contemporary repertoires, from Haydn to Aftab Darvishi, and endeavours to highlight more obscure works through innovative projects, such as the show ‘Du coq à l’alouette’, written entirely by the quartet, which premiered in 2022, or ‘Une pièce bien à elles’, devoted to works by women composers, which the quartet performs in all kinds of venues, with numerous appearances in SAMU Social shelters, schools throughout France and residential care homes.

Quatuor Métamorphoses is currently artist in residence at the Fondation Singer-Polignac and at ProQuartet – European Chamber Music Center. It is supported by the Fondation Safran for the 2022–23 season.