A concert by the Quatuor Ébène is truly a musical event. In the past two decades, the quartet has set standards by making familiar repertoire accessible in new ways and by constantly seeking a dialogue with the audience. This spring, Yuya Okamoto joined the quartet’s esteemed ranks, adding a new dimension.

After studying with the Quatuor Ysaÿe, Gábor Takács-Nagy, Eberhard Feltz, and György Kurtág, the Quatuor Ébène found unprecedented and outstanding success at the 2004 ARD International Music Competition, marking the beginning of its rise to fame. In 2005, the quartet was awarded the Belmont Prize from the Forberg-Schneider Foundation; in 2007, it won a prize from the Borletti-Buitoni Trust; and in 2019, it became the first ensemble ever to be honored with the Frankfurt Music Prize.

Quatuor Ébène’s albums—with recordings of Bartók, Beethoven, Debussy, Haydn, Fauré, and the Mendelssohn siblings—have received numerous awards that include prizes from Gramophone and BBC Music Magazine, as well as the MIDEM Classical Award. But foremost in the ensemble’s discography is its recording of Beethoven’s 16 string quartets, for which it travelled across six continents between May 2019 and January 2020. With this complete recording, the four celebrated their 20th stage anniversary.

In January 2021, the quartet established a string quartet class at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Munich as part of the newly founded Quatuor Ébène Academy.

In the 2023–2024 season, the Quatuor Ébène is a resident ensemble at the Philharmonie Luxembourg. In addition to chamber music concerts, the quartet presents John Adams’s Absolute Jest with the Luxembourg Philharmonic. As Quatuor en résidence à Radio France, it again performs three concerts in Paris. Further highlights include concerts at the Salzburg Festival, Berliner Philharmonie, Megaron Athens Concert Hall, Wigmore Hall in London, and Carnegie Hall.

Pierre Colombet plays a 1717 Antonio Stradivari violin, the “Piatti,” kindly loaned by a generous sponsor through Beare’s International Violin Society. Gabriel Le Magadure plays the ex-Baron Rothschild Peter Guarneri of Venice violin kindly loaned by the Miller-Porter Collection through Beare’s International Violin Society. Marie Chilemme plays a 1734 Stradivari, the “Gibson,” generously loaned by the Stradivari Foundation Habisreutinger. Yuya Okamoto plays a cello by Giovanni Grancino of Milan from 1682.