Rise and shine

A European initiative aims to give young talented string quartets the professional start they deserve

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The Zorá Quartet performs at the 2020–21 prize-giving ceremony of Le Dimore del Quartetto

MARTA D’AVENIA

Anew pan-European project aims to help 38 young string quartets grow their international profile at a critical and fragile time in their careers. The threeyear ‘Merita’ project (the acronym combines chamber Music, hERItage and TAlent) is co-funded by the European Union and involves 17 cultural institutions from 12 countries. It will offer the quartets training, networking and performance opportunities and a digital platform through which they can present original projects directly to concert organisers.

Merita is being led and coordinated by Le Dimore del Quartetto, an Italian organisation that supports emerging international quartets through a network of historic houses and concert societies, education partners and other cultural institutions. The organisation’s founder Francesca Moncada says: ‘Young quartets can win a competition and get invited to perform widely in their home country for a couple of years. But after a fantastic start, they find that the concert organisations that might have invited them a few years before no longer have openings for them. The big challenge then becomes mobility: the quartets need to go out after those first years and tour internationally. Only then do they stand a chance of developing an important career.’

The quartets being supported by Merita are at an exciting but challenging stage of their careers. Many are still receiving advanced musical training, and while the quartet is their career focus, they have to balance other commitments, such as teaching and other chamber music work, to survive economically. Although the European concert market is vast, there are hundreds of quartets seeking similar opportunities. Young quartets also have to dedicate time to networking and self-promotion as most don’t have an agent or management. Another multi-partner project led by Le Dimore del Quartetto called ‘Musa’ (the European young MUsicians soft Skills Alliance), which ran from October 2020 to November 2022, sought to address this issue by boosting young quartets’ entrepreneurial skills. ‘There are plenty of excellent quartets in terms of their musical ability,’ says Moncada, ‘but they are not necessarily professional enough to be ready for the market. For example, they’re not able to record themselves and present a project to promoters. At the beginning of their career, they are not chosen by agents because the concert pay is so low that there is no reason to represent them. So agents wait to see who will be “the one”.’

Musa’s focus on soft skills is echoed in the work of advanced training institutions such as the Paris-based ProQuartet European Chamber Music Centre. ‘We can no longer ignore how much networking, communication and presentation are essential to being a complete musician,’ says ProQuartet director Charlotte Bartissol. ‘So alongside our masterclasses, we’re doing more and more about everything but music-making, such as helping our resident quartets with their biographies, how to present themselves, talk to audiences, do media interviews, apply for grants and meet patrons.’

‘Young quartets are not necessarily professional enough to be ready for the market’ – Francesca Moncada, founder, Merita

Bartissol is also passionate about outreach, recognising that young artists are not routinely taught how to prepare projects for prisons, hospitals, or other non-conventional performance environments. She says that as a Merita partner institution, ProQuartet is proposing to work with quartets on the theme of concerts and shows for young audiences, and together with the String Quartet Biennale Foundation in Amsterdam, is proposing a project for audiences with disabilities. ‘Of course it’s important to convince promoters to programme more young quartets,’ says Bartissol, ‘but we also need to encourage young musicians to be part of the world, as both artists and citizens, and not to live in a musical bubble just playing in concert halls to connoisseurs, but being aware of everybody in society.’

One of the groups selected for Merita, the Belgium-based Desguin Quartet, has had success reaching new and younger audiences with interdisciplinary projects, working with actors and puppeteers. The quartet’s cellist, Pieter-Jan De Smet, says: ‘As a group, we feel that this might be the future for string quartets. If you want to perform purely the classical repertoire, it’s going to be a lot more difficult than when you try to combine your forces with other arts.’ The quartet’s 2023–24 season will be its busiest by far, says De Smet, with more than 50 performances in Belgium and abroad. ‘But it’s a difficult balance,’ he says, ‘with how to play all these concerts and still have time for the necessary development and professional training. We’re all making sacrifices to have more time for the quartet, and we’re now thinking about perhaps quitting teaching for a season, to see if it’s possible to live as purely quartet musicians.’

Another of the selected quartets, the Belgian–Irish Sonoro Quartet, is excited about the networking opportunities Merita and its digital platform will bring. The quartet secured a 2023 tour of New Zealand through a chance encounter at a gala concert after a competition in Budapest, and violist Seamus Hickey says: ‘Merita gives you the opportunity to have these kinds of encounters without physically having to go somewhere.’ The quartet’s violinist Jeroen De Beer adds: ‘There are so many musicians who play amazingly well but they don’t play enough concerts because they don’t know how the market works. Merita helps with that, and gives us the chance to meet people who’ve succeeded with developing their own vision as performers.’

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