First Prize Winners of the 22nd Charles Hennen International Chamber Music Competition in Holland, 2007, the Galitzin Quartet was formed in 2003 at the Royal Academy of Music in London.
After playing together for only two months they won the ‘Sir Edward Cooper Prize’ at the Academy for their performance of Brahms’ String Quartet in A Minor, which led to a public masterclass at the Wigmore Hall, London. Since this early achievement they have continued their prize-winning success, winning the Czech-London International Music Competition and receiving the Marjorie Bunty Lempfert award for chamber music, reaching the final of the Royal Overseas League Competition and winning the ‘Sir Arthur Bliss Prize’ for their performance of Bliss’ Clarinet Quintet with the critically acclaimed clarinetist Julian Bliss. The Galitzin Quartet held the Leverhulme Chamber Music Fellowship at the Royal Academy of Music during the 2006/07 season.
The quartet received scholarships to attend the International Musicians Seminar at Prussia Cove and Zeist Course in Holland and has been fortunate to receive tuition from members of some of the world’s leading quartets including the Amadeus, Alberni, Belcea, Bochmann, Brandis, Fitzwilliam, Jerusalem, Keller, Maggini, Mosaïques, Škampa, Vermeer and Wihan Quartets.
Recent performances in the UK include the Bloomsbury, Ryedale, Leeds, Pinner, Tilford-Bach, Chelsea Schubert and Windsor Music Festivals and halls such as the St. John Smith Square and St. Martin in the Fields in London. In the summer of 2006 they were invited to Portugal, performing in the Caldas da Rainha Music Festival and the “Fundação Eugénio de Almeida†in Évora, and in the Summer 2007 the quartet toured extensively through Normandy, France as well as Switzerland and gave a series of concerts in Holland culminating with two concerts in Amsterdam for the Grachtenfestival. Earlier this year the Galitzin Quartet toured Germany with the pianist Ksenia Rodionova. The quartet is committed to charity work and has given concerts in the South of France and the UK in aid of ‘Jessie’s Fund’.
The quartet was commissioned by the contemporary English composer, Professor John Ramsay, to record three of his string quartets and is honoured that he has dedicated his 3rd Quartet in C to them. They gave the World Première of this quartet on the 5th August 2006 in France. The Galitzin Quartet has also recorded for the Dutch Radio.
The Quartet is named after Prince Nicholas Galitzin of Saint Petersburg, the dedicatee of three of Beethoven's late Quartets: Op.127, 130 and 132.
