Page 271 - Media Coverage Book - 75th Aldeburgh Festival 2024

partners are also part of this, those who are more than just agency partners. They are part of the
quartet and have shaped our ensemble. So there really are many, many people in the Henschel
Quartet and every single one of them is indispensable. At no time was it a decisive factor to give
concerts in Carnegie Hall or the Vatican, all the stations that an artist's biography so readily lists,
just like ours. We would still be the ensemble we are today if life on the "big stages" had taken
place without us.

A circle of friends, the non-profit organisation "Freunde des Henschel Quartetts e.V.", formed
around our quartet early on. It was the mutual inspiration and commitment that brought us all
closer together over the years. We share many wonderful experiences with our friends in the
circle of friends and outside the
association.

Like many of our musical peers, we now curate festivals.

And because the sound body as a phenomenon can only be experienced and not explained, we
conjured up exactly that on the large steps of the spacious modern museum building with the first
String Quartet Biennale at the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich in 2022. Six string quartet
ensembles played at six different locations in the museum, with the audience sitting loosely
grouped on the steps around them. Both the ensemble and the audience were surrounded by
sound and light created by video artist Manuela Hartel, who had transformed the sound
phenomenon into light art: a total work of art. Munich audiences are still talking about this sound
experience today. Well, it does work. What cannot be described in words can still be
experienced.

While the Biennale is a joint venture of the Federal Association of Excellence Ensembles
founded by Monika Henschel in 2012 and takes place in the Bavarian capital, the Henschel
Quartet's two festivals breathe the peace and tranquillity of enchanting places in the countryside.