BIOGRAPHY 2024/2025

Barbican Quartet

Amarins Wierdsma, Violin

Kate Maloney, Violin

Christoph Slenczka, Viola

Yoanna Prodanova, Cello

The Barbican Quartet has established itself as a distinctive presence on the international chamber music scene, thanks to their unique sound and character, and their deeply personal and thoughtful interpretations. They explore both the great string quartet repertoire and contemporary music with fervour.

In September 2022, the Barbican Quartet won first prize at the 71st ARD International String Quartet Competition. They were also awarded the special prize for the best interpretation of the commissioned work by Dobrinka Tabakova, the GEWA Prize, the Henle Urtext Prize and the Genuin classics CD production special prize. The resounding success at the ARD Competition followed the ensemble's third prize win at the Bordeaux International String Quartet Competition in May 2022. The Quartet also won first prize at the 2019 Joseph Joachim International Chamber Music Competition and received awards from the Hattori Foundation, the Royal Philharmonic Society and the Musicians’ Company UK.

In June 2024 the Barbican Quartet released their debut CD, Manifesto on Love, on the Genuin label. BR Klassik lauded their playing in this recording as “tonally balanced and perfectly coordinated”, while Pizzicato, a classical music journal, awarded the CD its Supersonic Award and praised their "exhilarating, sometimes even a little boiling interpretations that cannot leave you cold." The CD was also featured as album of the week on BR Klassik and NDR Kultur.

Highlights of past seasons include their debuts at venues such as the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, the Alte Oper Frankfurt, the Prinzregententheater Munich, the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, TivoliVredenburg, Kings Place London, the Davos Festival and the Merano Music Weeks.

The Barbican Quartet is a regular guest at international festivals such as the MecklenburgVorpommern Festival, the Weilburg Schlossfestspielen, Regensburg Kammermusik Festival, the Stresa Festival, Vibre! Quatuors à Bordeaux, the Montreal Chamber Music Festival, the Zeister Muziekdagen, the Peasmarsh Festival, IMS Prussia Cove, Aldeburgh and the Lake District Music Festival. They regularly perform together with musicians and ensembles such as Quatuor Ébène, James Ehnes, Nicolas Baldeyrou, Nils Mönkemeyer, Richard Lester, Anthony Marwood and Andrew Marriner. Their performances have been broadcast on BR Klassik Radio, NDR, NPO Radio 4 and BBC Radio 3.

This season will see the Barbican Quartet making its debut at the Liederhalle in Stuttgart, the String Quartet Biennale in Amsterdam, the Rheingau Music Festival, the BASF Cultural Programme in Ludwigshafen and the Kammermusik! Festival Würzburg. In addition, the Quartet will also embark on international concert tours taking them to France, Finland, Belgium, Canada, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Turkey and the United Kingdom. The Barbican Quartet's highly anticipated second album, their first as part of their new collaboration with the renowned Berlin Classics/EDEL label, is scheduled for release in spring 2026.

The Barbican Quartet's founding members, Amarins, Christoph and Yoanna, met during their studies at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, while Kate joined in 2022. In the course of their further studies, the ensemble also received mentoring from the Quatuor Ébène and Eberhard Feltz at the University of Music and Theatre Munich, as well as support and guidance from Günter Pichler at the Reina Sofia String Quartet Academy in Madrid, where they studied from 2017 to 2023. The Quartet attended further masterclasses and received coaching from the Belcea Quartet, Ferenc Rados, András Keller, Oliver Wille, David Watkin, Krzysztof Chorzelski, Alasdair Tait and David Waterman.

The name of the Quartet has a double significance: a “barbican” is a fortified outpost or gateway of a medieval city or castle, which the quartet members associate with their quest to discover, develop, but also to defend the tradition of string quartet playing. Furthermore, as the Quartet is closely connected to London, the name is a reminder that it was there at the Barbican Centre that they gave their inaugural concert in 2015. The Quartet now divides its time between London, Vienna and Munich.

Amarins is grateful to the Dutch Musicals Instrument Foundation for their support with her instruments. Kate plays a violin by Francesco Ruggieri (Cremona, 1685) on loan from the Canadian Canimex Group, Christoph plays a 2010 Bernd Hiller viola and Yoanna’s cello is a 1782 Giovanni Gagliano, also on loan from Canimex.

Status: September 2025 Please do not use older biographies. Any changes require the prior approval of Grunau & Paulus Music Management.