Quatuor Ébène

Within ten years of its establishment the Quatuor Ébène advanced from an accomplished yet inexperienced and largely unrecognized string quartet to an ensemble commanding widespread esteem, secured by a major recording contract and a schedule that placed it regularly on the stages of leading concert halls. Its forays into hybrid repertoire proved no obstacle to this ascent, while its occasional use of the voice further enhanced both its appeal and its distinctive character.

The group came together in 1999 at the Boulogne-Billancourt Conservatory. Its original members were violinists Pierre Colombet and Gabriel Le Magadure, violist Mathieu Herzog, and cellist Raphaël Merlin. Adrien Boisseau assumed the viola position in 2015 after Herzog departed to concentrate on conducting; two years later Marie Chilemme succeeded Boisseau. Recognition remained modest until the quartet captured first prize at the 2004 ARD International Competition in Munich. The following year brought additional distinction when it received the 2005 Belmont Prize awarded by the Forberg-Schneider Foundation. In 2006 the ensemble appeared under the BBC’s “New Generation Artists” program and issued its debut recording—three Haydn quartets—on the Mirare label. Beginning in 2007 it undertook regular tours throughout Europe, the United States, and Canada. Its initial Virgin Classics release followed in 2008, presenting the quartets of Debussy, Fauré, and Ravel; the album later earned the 2009 Gramophone Record of the Year award.

Although the quartet’s most notable achievements have come through performances of the classical literature, particularly works by Schubert, Brahms, Borodin, Fauré, Debussy, Ravel, Prokofiev, Bartók, and many others, its crossover projects have also attracted praise for their inventive craftsmanship. These projects typically feature the players’ own arrangements, frequently drawn from film scores, among them those for Pulp Fiction and Philadelphia. Virgin Classics issued the ensemble’s first fully crossover album in 2010, containing treatments of numbers such as “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” and “Streets of Philadelphia” and featuring additional contributions from Natalie Dessay, Richard Héry, and further collaborators. In 2020 the quartet released a complete cycle of Beethoven’s string quartets under the title Beethoven Around the World and embarked on a twenty-one-country tour marking the composer’s 250th birthday.