Belcea String Quartet

Twenty years ago, a group of young string players at London’s Royal College of Music came together around a collective passion for the string quartet repertoire and its endless capacity for reinterpretation. A few years later, their rendering of the Debussy and Ravel string quartets won the Gramophone Award for Best Debut Recording, and the rest is history. The Guardian (London) describes the intensity of a Belcea performance well: “[they] seize the music’s energy, shocking us out of our seats with every fortissimo.” And in addition to their eternally youthful energy, they are deeply committed to mentoring emerging groups and fostering a landscape of young quartet players—the Belcea Quartet Trust is an ambitious new project that offers intensive coaching sessions for ensembles on the rise. In their Princeton debut (and a rare visit to the United States), they will perform works by two great melodicists, Schubert and Brahms. Prepare to drive home with tunes running through your head!