Biography
'' The Quartet Gerhard clearly responds to the question why art exists. Its four members commit themselves completely and without ado to their vocation and dedicate themselves with conviction and devotion to serving the best music - including an intelligent choice of contemporary repertoire - to explain, without words, its meaning or, at least, in the best possible conditions offered by the live experience of a concert - to confront us with the mystery of art. ''
- Ramon Humet, composer
The Quartet Gerhard is distinguished for a remarkable sensitivity for sound and for an inner respect for music as the highest link between human beings.
As a quartet, they have their main roots in Basel (Rainer Schmidt), Berlin (Eberhard Feltz), Hannover (Oliver Wille) and they are currently taking part in the chamber music program of the Instituto de Cámara (Günter Pichler) thanks to the scholarship given by Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía . They have also worked with other great personalities such as György Kurtág, András Schiff and Ferenc Rados.
Prize winners of several national and international competitions, they take part in venues such as the Chamber Music Series at the Stadt-Casino Basel (Switzerland), the Bordeaux String Quartet Festival and Radio France Festival Montpellier (France), Elbphilharmonie Hamburg (Germany), the Musikamera series in La Fenice (Italy) the 'Palau de la Música' and Chamber Music Series L’Auditori (Barcelona) and the Muzenforum Concerten Bloemendaal (Holland), among others. It is also remarkable their commitment to music of new creation, appearing in important venues such as the CNDM series in Madrid, Nuit de la Création in Aix-en-Provence and in the series of the Arnold Schoenberg Center in Vienna. From 2023 they are taking part of the Merita Platform which gives them a relevant international projection.
Among other long term projects stands out the String Quartet Academy in Vic (Barcelona), founded by Gerard Claret and Cuarteto Casals. Within this academy they are once per year involved as teachers in the task of conveying the beauty of chamber music making.
Surpassing their early and enthusiastic praise, Quartet Gerhard has shown, beyond all expectation, how talent and perseverance lead to success. The impeccable work of Quartet Gerhard, particularly in the sound, added to the univocal direction they have taken to becoming an established string quartet (something more than four excellent musicians playing together), explains their recognition and reach. With a critically acclaimed debut album under their belt, a good handful of reviews and a calendar of diverse concerts, Gerhard Quartet offers creative programs that are evidently complex and, to a certain extent, complementary. Repertoires aimed at taking deeper breaths from an already common, shared source. Their poetry expressed in that which is strictly musical but also in that which encases it, mature beneath the presentation of these new programs. A path that forges ahead, towards its own horizon.
Their performances have been broadcasted by Catalunya Radio and RNE (Spain), NDR and SWR (Germany) on a regular basis. Among their discography we can find the CD-Album ‘Portrait’, supported by the new label Seed Music (Spain, 2016), a release with music by Kurtag, Schumann and Berg by Harmonia Mundi International and the CD Ad Astra with works by Debussy & Ramon Humet by Klarthe (2023). They also have been part of the documentary “Revolutionary Quartet. L’enigma Gerhard” by Xavier Bosch & Josep Badell, winner of the prestigious INEDIT prize 2023.