Vertavo

Vertavo, founded in 1984, has earned the reputation of being one of Europe’s most outstanding string quartets. It won the 1st Prize for quartets, the Audience Prize for quartets, an unanimous Age Critic’s Prize and ABC Classic FM listeners’ Choice Award for quartets at 2nd Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition in 1995. The quartet is regularly invited to go on tour, play at festivals and give master classes in Australia and New Zealand. They are also frequently on tour throughout Europe appearing in such prestigious music halls as Schauspielhaus and Kammersaal der Philharmonie, Berlin, Schloss Mirabel, Salzburg, Concertgebouw, Amsterdam and Wigmore Hall, London. They have performed at most of the Scandinavian chamber music festivals in addition to performing at the Bath Music Festival, England, Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival, Finland, and Epinal Festival Musique de Chambre, France, and the Berliner Festspiele, Germany. Vertavo String Quartet received the Critics’ Prize from the Norwegian press in 1996, and won the 1st Prize at the Nordic Chamber Music Contest held in Copenhagen the same year. In 2005, the Quartet were honoured with the Grieg Prize 2005 – a prize bestowed on an artist of high international standing and of which former recipients include Leif Ove Andsnes, Truls Mørk and the Grieg Trio. Since 2001 Vertavo is artistic director of Festspillene i Elverum (the Elverum Music Festival). The quartet performs on instruments lent out by Dextra Musica, a company owned by the DnB NOR Savings Bank Foundation. www.vertavo.com Sept 2009