The first details about our 2020 National Tour are here! Next year it’s all about Ludwig van Beethoven to celebrate 250 years since the composer’s birth back in 1770. And 250 years on, Beethoven’s music reverberates as loudly as ever. Few other composers have made such an enormous contribution to not only the string quartet genre, but also western music as a whole.
We’re celebrating by embarking on an ambitious project touring Beethoven’s complete string quartets throughout New Zealand – and internationally. That’s all 16 of his string quartets, across 20 towns and cities, in 50 concerts for Beethoven’s 250th in 2020.
“Like a scientist in his laboratory with the periodic table in front of him, Beethoven gives the impression of using a different earth element as the building block for each new quartet.” - Arnold Steinhardt, 1st violinist of the Guarneri Quartet
Because it offers something for everyone, we want to share this music with as many people as possible by performing even more concerts than usual on our National Tour – three times as many, in fact!
Head on over to our National Tour 2020 page and grab your diaries because you won’t want to miss any of our Beethoven concerts. Don’t worry – we know you’ll want some more details really soon. In early 2020 we’ll be releasing programme, venue, and ticketing information. Stay tuned!
In the meantime, here are some of our 2020 Highlights:
Enjoy a two-week festival in Wellington featuring the one-and-only Beethoven and all sixteen of his incredible string quartets in September. We’re doing the travelling so you don’t have to - between June and September catch us performing the complete Beethoven string quartets in the Auckland region. There are two international tours – where we’ll also perform all of Beethoven String Quartets in Germany and the Netherlands, and even more concerts in North America. We’ll be coaching and performing for young people while we’re on tour to encourage and nurture their own passions for music – whether that’s Beethoven or beatboxing. Across the year we're giving six concerts in the Christchurch region, including four Beethoven concerts, a performance featuring new music from New Zealand and international composers as part of the International Society for Contemporary Music’s World Music Days, and with Grammy award-winner Rahim AlHaj as part of our Chamber Music New Zealand Tour.
For more information about our full 2020 Season, see our upcoming events page.