Pavel Haas Quartet was founded in 2002 by the violinist Veronika Jarůšková and the violist Pavel Nikl, who was a member of the ensemble until 2016, when he left due to family reasons. Yet their collaboration has continued – Pavel Nikl has been the ensemble’s permanent guest for string quintet performances. Between 2004 and 2012, the second violin was played by Kateřina Gemrotová Penková, Marie Fuxová and Eva Karová Krestová. In 2016 and 2017, the viola was played by Radim Sedmidubský, in 2018 and 2019 by Jiří Kabát. Since the spring 2021, the viola position has been occupied by a world-renowned violinist and violist Luosha Fang.
Following their victory in the Prague Spring Festival Competition and Premio Paolo Borciani in Reggio Emilia, Italy in 2005, the Pavel Haas Quartet soon established themselves as one of the world’s most exciting contemporary chamber ensembles. Performing at the most renowned concert venues around the globe, the PHQ have to date recorded eight critically acclaimed CDs, which have received numerous prestigious awards. The ensemble members studied with Milan Škampa, the legendary violist of the Smetana Quartet.
In 2007, the European Concert Hall Organisation (ECHO) named the Pavel Haas Quartet one of its Rising Stars, following which they were afforded the opportunity to give numerous high-profile concert appearances all over the world. Between 2007 and 2009, the Pavel Haas Quartet held the title of BBC New Generation Artist. In 2010, the ensemble was granted a classical music fellowship from the Borletti–Buitoni Trust.
Veronika Jarůšková
1st violin
Marek Zwiebel
2nd violin
Luosha Fang
viola
Peter Jarůšek
cello
At the end of January and the beginning of February, the Pavel Haas Quartet will give concerts in Ostrava and Brno, following which they will leave the Czech Republic and set out on tours of Europe and North America. They will be performing at such prestigious venues as De Bijloke in Gent, the Graz and Vienna Musikvereins, the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, the Meistersingerhalle in Nuremberg, the Konzerthaus in Berlin, the Muzikgebouw in Amsterdam and Wigmore Hall in London, and also appear at renowned festivals, including the Flagey Piano Days in Brussels and the East Neuk Festival in Scotland. In March, the ensemble will make a tour of Canada and the USA, within which they will visit Vancouver, Portland, Napa, San Francisco, Minneapolis and Salt Lake City.
This year the Pavel Haas Quartet will be celebrating their 20th anniversary. The venerable BBC Music Magazine has ranked the Pavel Haas Quartet among the 10 greatest string quartets of all time, alongside the Alban Berg Quartet, Amadeus Quartet, Borodin Quartet and other stellar ensembles.
The Pavel Haas Quartet have exclusively recorded for Supraphon. Their very first album (2006), featuring Leoš Janáček’s String Quartet No. 2, “Intimate Letters”, and Pavel Haas’s String Quartet No. 2, “From the Monkey Mountains”, earned the ensemble their first Gramophone Award. The Daily Telegraph named it CD of the Year. The second album, completing the mapping of Leoš Janáček’s and Pavel Haas’s quartet works, garnered enormous acclaim too.
Their third album, featuring both Sergey Prokofiev quartets and the Sonata for Two Violins, won France’s Diapason d’Or de l’Année 2010. The fourth album, featuring Antonín Dvořák’s quartets in F major, the “American”, Op. 96, and in G major, Op. 106, received the 2011 Gramophone Award in the Chamber category, as well as the most coveted prize of all – Recording of the Year. The Sunday Times gave the album the highest possible rating.
In 2014, the Pavel Haas Quartet received yet another Gramophone Award, for the album of Schubert’s String Quartet in D minor, “Death and the Maiden”, and String Quintet, recorded with the German cellist Danjulo Ishizaka. Their following album, featuring Smetana’s String Quartets Nos 1 and 2 (2015), earned the ensemble their fifth Gramophone Award and second BBC Music Magazine Award.
For their latest disc of Dvořák’s Piano Quintet No. 2 and String Quintet No. 3 (2017) with Boris Giltburg and their former member Pavel Nikl they were awarded their sixth Gramophone Award.
Their latest recording of Shostakovich’s String Quartets Nos. 2, 7 and 8 was released in October 2019.
The quartet bears the name of the Czech composer Pavel Haas (1899–1944), the most talented pupil of Leoš Janáček, who in 1941 was imprisoned by the Nazis in the Terezín ghetto and three years later died in Auschwitz. Pavel Haas’s oeuvre includes three splendid string quartets.