The Minguet Quartet, founded in 1988, is among one of the most well-received string quartets internationally and performs at major concert venues worldwide. Audiences are guaranteed a great musical experience through intelligent and passionate interpretations, based as these are on a "pure delight in sound along with expression that the ensemble applies to the works and which inspires even the smallest details” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung).
The group takes its name from Pablo Minguet, an eighteenth-century Spanish philosopher who attempted in his writings to make the fine arts accessible to the masses.
The Minguet Quartet has the same intention. The quartet focusses on the Classical and Romantic repertoires as well as contemporary music, and promotes the latter by premiering numerous compositions of our own times.
Encountering renowned contemporary composers always generates new ideas. In this sense, the complete recordings of works for string quartet by Wolfgang Rihm, Peter Ruzicka and Jörg Widmann are key projects for the Minguet Quartet.
The current recordings of the complete string quartets by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Josef Suk and Heinrich von Herzogenberg present extraordinary and outstanding Romantic music at a very high artistic standard.
In 2014/2015 the Minguet Quartet gives performances in the Philharmonic Halls of Berlin and Cologne, in Laeiszhalle Hamburg, Tonhalle Düsseldorf, in Teatro La Fenice Venice and Frankfurt Opera House. The ensemble also plays at the Biennale Munich, Festival Grafenegg and Festival International du Luberon. They will tour through Canada, Central America and Japan. During the last two years they gave performances at the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Salzburg Festival, Vienna Concert Hall, Bachfest Leipzig, Beethovenfest Bonn and George Enescu Festival Bucharest.
The quartet can count among its musical partners Mojca Erdmann, Christian Gerhaher, Sharon Kam, Jörg Widmann, Andrea Lucchesini and the PianoDuo GrauSchumacher. The Minguet Quartet has also worked with the artist Michael Degen and with the Huelgas Ensemble, and will cooperate soon with HR Symphonic Orchestra under the direction of Markus Stenz, with the WDR Symphonic Orchestra under Jukka-Pekka Saraste and with Bruckner Orchestra Linz and Peter Ruzicka.
In 2010 the Minguet Quartet was awarded the prestigious ECHO KLASSIK PRIZE.
As of February 2015