About
The Butter Quartet consists of four musicians brought together by their mutual love of vibrant historically-informed performance of string quartets. They first formed during their studies at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague, but soon developed a passion and dynamic that extended beyond their conservatory years. Past and upcoming festival features include The String Quartet Biënnale Amsterdam (2024), the York Early Music Festival (2023), the Utrecht Early Music Festival (2022), Mozartfest Würzburg (2021) and the Beethoven Academy at the National Forum for Music in Poland (2020). Their performances have also been broadcast on national classical radio in the Netherlands (NPO4), the UK (BBC3), France (France Musique) and Slovenia (RTV Slovenija).
At the 2019 York Early Music International Young Artists Competition, they were awarded a place in the prestigious EEEMERGING+ professional development scheme for young European ensembles.
The Butter Quartet enjoys integrating their research on late 18th- and early 19th-century performance practice into powerful performances. They also bring the same spirit of discovery to newly-composed works for historically-setup instruments. The Butters value a strong connection with their audiences, and have partnered with community organizations to create grassroots concert tours in diverse spaces, supported by grants from the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds and the Fonds Podiumkunsten.
They have had coachings with renowned musicians and researchers such as Sigiswald Kuijken, Midori Seiler, Kati Debretzeni, Shunske Sato, Claire Holden, and Clive Brown. They attended the Evolution of the String Quartet program in 2018 at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, with support from scholarships from Early Music America and the Adriana Jacoba Fonds. The Butter Quartet is the most recent recipient of the String Quartet Stipend from Het Kersjes Fonds.
photos © Bertrand PICHENE