Navarra String Quartet is represented by Rayfield Allied Worldwide.

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Navarra String Quartet

Chamber Ensemble

  • the Navarra Quartet who deliver compelling performances.
    BBC Music Magazine
  • ...They have a warmly-rounded and very expressive sound, perfectly suited to Haydn: on this showing, they are already in the first rank of his music’s exponents...
    The Independent

  • Winners of the Outstanding Young Artist Award at the MIDEM Classique Awards in Cannes in 2008, the Navarra String Quartet were selected for representation by Young Classical Artists Trust between 2006 and 2011, and, in 2007, received a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship culminating in a highly-acclaimed disc of Haydn’s Seven Last Words.

    At the opening of the 2009/10 season, the Navarra Quartet returned to Australia to give recitals in Melbourne, Sydney and at the Huntingdon Estate Music Festival under the auspices of Musica Viva.  They went on to appear at Wigmore Hall, the Bath Festival and Aldeburgh, and gave recitals in France (as Laureates of the Aix-en-Provence Festival), Switzerland, Italy, Ireland and the Netherlands.

    In 2010, the Quartet recorded a CD of Peteris Vasks’ Quartets for Challenge Records, and took part in the BBC Proms Chamber music series at Cadogan Hall with pianist Francesco Piemontesi. 

    Over the last two years, the Navarra Quartet have increasingly developed their international profile, appearing at major festivals and venues throughout Europe including the Philharmonie in Luxembourg, Berlin’s Konzerthaus, the Schwetzinger, Rheingau and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festivals in Germany, the Aix-en-Provence and Bellerive Festivals and the Kattegat and Sandviken Festivals in Sweden.  Further afield, they have given concerts in Russia, the USA and Bahrain.

    Engagements this season and beyond include return visits to Wigmore Hall and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam; concerts at the Buxton, Lammermuir and Stratford festivals; and three exciting new British commissions.

    Navarra String Quartet is represented by Rayfield Allied Worldwide.
    This biography is for information only and should not be reproduced.

    • Haydn, Britten and Beethoven, Lammermuir Festival
      24 September 2011

      The Navarra Quartet resonated richly, without in any way compromising clarity...Magnus Johnston gave a very good account of himself...the ensemble of the quartet was impressive.
      BachTrack.com

    • Presteigne Festival at St Andrew’s Church
      August 2011

      The Navarra Quartet […] refreshed us with their Friday evening recital: Beethoven, Haydn, and David Matthews’s bird-garlanded Quartet No 10 […] sumptuous tone”
      Erik Levi, BBC Music Magazine

    • Vasks String Quartets Nos 1-3
      Challenge Classics CC 72365

      All three works, recorded in the presence of the composer, are projected with almost graphic immediacy by the Navarra Quartet who deliver compelling performances captured here in extremely vivid sound. Overall, then, this disc comes hotly recommended.
      Erik Levi, BBC Music Magazine
      They play this repertoire with the utmost conviction, and judging by the photo in the book, to the satisfaction of the composer.
      Siebe Riedstra, Luister, November 2010
      The playing is nothing short of sensational, the precision and enormous dynamics absolutely thrilling, as is the clarity of recording.
      Yorkshirepost.co.uk, October 2010
      We can be very brief about the Navarra Quartet: Amazing!
      PS Mania Klassiek, October 2010
      The stunning performance compensates a lot. The Navarra has specialized in a finely polished expression. Flawless intonations bring a sonority that causes a sensation in itself.
      Thiemo Wind, De Telegraaf, October 2010
      …this young UK-based ensemble understands his music down to the microsecond, and plays at a level that can be characterized as exceptional…
      Volkskrant, September 2010

    • Mozart Musical Journey, Lammermuir Festival
      September 2010

      ...the Navarra Quartet, who had accepted the challenge of playing three concerts in one day. Without faltering, they took us by the hand, and lead us through six magical works by Mozart, Haydn and Schubert.', 'The audience sighed with wonder after the Navarra’s First movement of the Haydn G minor Op20/3 [...], in a way that I have never quite heard before.', 'Having felt a little daunted by the prospect of an entire day of quartet concerts, in fact I found myself luxuriating in so much music, so well played. It was a wonderful indulgence to hear it all in one go, and from the hands of the Navarra. When they really go for it, their combined sound has a deeply satisfying sense of plenty of meat-on-the bone. They can conjure up a demented bluebottle in the last movement of Haydn’s D major, before their light touch sends it out, with absolutely no fuss, through the open window of the final bars. And what a delight it is to hear Magnus Johnston, returning at last to full-time quartet playing. Whether it is turning a first violin flourish with elegance and ease, flying helter-skelter over the last movement of Mozart’s Dissonance Quartet, creating an exquisite fairy-like Trio in Mozart’s D minor, or a plaintive folk flautando in the E flat major’s Trio, to listen to him is to know you are where you should be.
      Herald Newspaper, September 2010

    • Chamber Prom 2: Piemontesi/Navarra Quartet, Cadogan Hall
      July 2010

      ...they launched into Schumann’s Piano Quintet in E flat major with such assurance that they might have been collaborating for years. This majestic work was written by Schumann as a miniature piano concerto which his wife Clara could perform without orchestra in private houses: Piemontesi and the Navarras gave it the requisite declamatory spaciousness from the start. As with Schumann’s piano concerto proper, this work involves constant dialogue between soloist and ensemble: with Piemontesi leading the way, they made a thrilling journey through an emotional landscape by turns sweet, spooky, throbbingly combustible, and liberatingly joyous. And if this was a flawless performance, so was the Navarra Quartet’s treatment of one of Haydn’s early masterpieces, the G minor Quartet Opus 20. They have a warmly-rounded and very expressive sound, perfectly suited to Haydn: on this showing, they are already in the first rank of his music’s exponents.
      Michael Church, The Independent

    • Haydn: String Quartet, Op. 51 ‘Seven Last Words’
      Altara: ALT1040

      …the players realize the music’s essential intensity…with their vivid sense of dramatic expression in an intensely detailed performance.
      BBC Music Magazine, September 2009

  • Photos

    • Photographer credit: Sussie Ahlburg
      Photographer credit: Sussie Ahlburg
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    • Photographer credit: Sussie Ahlburg
      Photographer credit: Sussie Ahlburg
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    • Photographer credit: Sussie Ahlburg
      Photographer credit: Sussie Ahlburg
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    • Photographer credit: Sussie Ahlburg
      Photographer credit: Sussie Ahlburg
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    • Photographer credit: Sussie Ahlburg
      Photographer credit: Sussie Ahlburg
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