Castalian String Quartet

• Haydn - String Quartet No.4 in D major, Op.20
• Charlotte Bray - Ungrievable Lives (2021)
• Beethoven - String Quartet No.13 in Bb major, Op.130, with Grosse Fugue

This concert will feature an accompanying exhibition of Caroline Burraway's installation Ungrievable Lives, the inspiration for Charlotte Bray's first composition for string quartet.

Burraway has been responding to the refugee crisis since 2015, filming and collecting research materials in refugee camps across Europe which she uses for installations, video, and large-scale drawings. This project, supported by UNHCR, aims to provoke a humanitarian response to the twin issues of displacement and dispossession.

Bray, inspired by Burraway’s art installation Ungrievable Lives, comprising 13 children’s dresses, handmade from refugee lifejackets gathered by the artist at the Lifejacket Graveyard in Lesvos, has responded to the migrant crisis with her very first string quartet which has premiered across Europe over the course of 2022/23.

The Castalian String Quartet is taking the international chamber music scene by storm. Gaining renown for interpretations 'full of poetry, joy and sorrow, realised to such perfection' (The Observer), they have recently been chosen as our first quartet for the Hans Keller String Quartet Residency.

Formed in 2011, the quartet studied with Oliver Wille at the Hochschule für Musik, Hannover, before being selected by the Young Classical Artists Trust (YCAT) in 2016. They were awarded First Prize at the 2015 Lyon International Chamber Music Competition and in 2018 were recipients of the inaugural Merito String Quartet Award and Valentin Erben Prize, and a prestigious Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship. The ensemble was named Young Artist of the Year at the 2019 Royal Philharmonic Society Awards.