The Zephyr Quartet is a

string quartet The term string quartet can refer to either a type of musical composition or a group of four people who play them. Many composers from the mid-18th century onwards wrote string quartets. The associated musical ensemble consists of two violinists ...

based in

Adelaide Adelaide ( ) is the capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide (including the Adelaide Hills) or the Adelaide city centre. The dem ...

, South Australia. Founded in 1999, they have been recognised with awards and have collaborated with international musicians.

History

Founded in 1999, Zephyr has received tuition from the

Takács Quartet The Takács Quartet is a string quartet founded in Budapest, Hungary, and now based in Boulder, Colorado, United States. History In 1975, four students at the Music Academy in Budapest, Gábor Takács-Nagy (first violin), Károly Schranz (seco ...

, the

Australian String Quartet The Australian String Quartet (ASQ) is a chamber music group founded in 1985 and based at the University of Adelaide, South Australia. It delivers an artistic program of performances, workshops, commissions, digital content and education projects ...

and at the National Academy of Music, performed at festivals including the

Adelaide Festival The Adelaide Festival of Arts, also known as the Adelaide Festival, an arts festival, takes place in the South Australian capital of Adelaide in March each year. Started in 1960, it is a major celebration of the arts and a significant cultural ...

Adelaide Fringe The Adelaide Fringe, formerly Adelaide Fringe Festival, is the world's second-largest annual arts festival (after the Edinburgh Festival Fringe), held in the South Australian capital of Adelaide. Between mid-February and mid-March each year, i ...

, Barossa Music Festival and the Glenelg Jazz Festival, and has presented concert series in 2004 and 2005 to great critical acclaim. In August 2019, shortly after winning the APRA Award for Excellence by an Organisation (see below), Zephyr announced that they would be taking a pause from regular performances for a period, although not disbanding completely.

Work

Zephyr has a continuing commitment to the development and promotion of

contemporary classical music Contemporary classical music is classical music composed close to the present day. At the beginning of the 21st century, it commonly referred to the post-1945 modern forms of post-tonal music after the death of Anton Webern, and included seria ...

and often commissions and performs works by living composers. Zephyr has been committed to presenting concerts in an education context and would often perform for primary and secondary school students as a part of the

Musica Viva Musica Viva was founded in 1945 by Romanian-born violinist Richard Goldner, with the aim of bringing chamber music to Australia. The co-founder was a German-born musicologist, Walter Dullo. At its inception, Musica Viva was a string ensemble per ...

in Schools program. Each member of the quartet are also experienced

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Defi ...

s, who often contribute their own work in their concerts and recordings. The quartet has worked with

Brink Productions Brink Productions is an Australian theatre company based in Adelaide, specialising in the ensemble-development of new writing. History Brink was established in 1996 as a collective of seven actors, primarily graduates from the drama school of Fl ...

, Australian Dance Theatre, and an interior designer, Khai Liew. Spanning many genres of music, they have played

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

with

Andrea Keller Andrea Keller (born 1973) is an Australian pianist and composer. She won three ARIA Award for Best Jazz Album with ''Thirteen Sketches'', ''Mikrokosmos'' and ''Footprints'' and was nominated in 2013 for the album ''Family Portraits''. Biograph ...

ambient music Ambient music is a genre of music that emphasizes tone and atmosphere over traditional musical structure or rhythm. It may lack net composition, beat, or structured melody.The Ambient Century by Mark Prendergast, Bloomsbury, London, 2003. It u ...

with Stars of the Lid,

post-punk Post-punk (originally called new musick) is a broad genre of punk music that emerged in the late 1970s as musicians departed from punk's traditional elements and raw simplicity, instead adopting a variety of avant-garde sensibilities and non-roc ...

with

JG Thirlwell James George Thirlwell (born 29 January 1960), also known as Clint Ruin, Frank Want, and Foetus, among other names, is an Australian musician, composer, and record producer. He is known for juxtaposing a variety of different musical styles. ...

, and

minimalist music In visual arts, Minimal music, music and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in post–World War II in Western art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with minimal ...

with Icelandic composer

Jóhann Jóhannsson Jóhann Gunnar Jóhannsson (; 19 September 1969 – 9 February 2018) was an Icelandic composer who wrote music for a wide array of media including theatre, dance, television, and film. His work is stylised by its blending of traditional orchest ...

Key people

The members of the quartet are: *Belinda Gehlert –

violin The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...

*Emily Tulloch – violin *Jason Thomas -

viola The viola ( , also , ) is a string instrument that is bow (music), bowed, plucked, or played with varying techniques. Slightly larger than a violin, it has a lower and deeper sound. Since the 18th century, it has been the middle or alto voice of ...

*Hilary Kleinig –

cello The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a Bow (music), bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), t ...

Hilary Kleinig

It was Kleinig who, when at university in 1999, asked some friends to play in a string quartet with her. Kleining plays

baroque cello A Baroque violin is a violin set up in the manner of the baroque period of music. The term includes original instruments which have survived unmodified since the Baroque period, as well as later instruments adjusted to the baroque setup, and moder ...

and viola da gamba, and has studied in Australia at the Elder Conservatorium with Niall Brown and Janis Laurs, and in the UK with

Anna Shuttleworth Anna Shuttleworth (2 May 1927 – 2 March 2021Anna Shuttleworth (2n ...

and Alison Crumb. Her work includes performance, composition and arranging, education and arts management. She has worked in live and recorded performance as a freelance musician and in orchestras for opera, ballet and musicals. As a baroque specialist Kleinig plays with chamber ensembles such as Syntony, Adelaide Baroque,

Adelaide Chamber Singers Adelaide Chamber Singers is an Australian chamber choir. Along with Greta Bradman, Adelaide Symphony Orchestra and Luke Dollman they received a nomination for the 2018 ARIA Awards for Best Classical Album with the album ''Home''. Discography Alb ...

and the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra. She also composes and arranges music for film, dance, theatre and ensembles, teaches cello and conducts ensembles.

Awards

South Australian Music Awards

The

South Australian Music Awards The South Australian Music Awards, also known as SA Music Awards, commonly SAM Awards, formerly Fowler's Live Music Awards (FLMA), are annual awards that exist to recognise, promote and celebrate excellence in the South Australian contemporary mu ...

(previously known as the Fowler's Live Music Awards) are annual awards that exist to recognise, promote and celebrate excellence in the South Australian contemporary music industry. They commenced in 2012. , - , 2018 , Zephyr Quartet , Best International Collaboration , , - In August 2019, the Quartet won the APRA Award for Excellence by an Organisation, a national award by the

Australasian Performing Right Association APRA AMCOS consists of Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA) and Australasian Mechanical Copyright Owners Society (AMCOS), both copyright management organisations or copyright collectives which jointly represent over 100,000 songwr ...

, AMCOS and the Australian Music Centre in Sydney, in the

Art Music Awards The APRA Music Awards in Australia are annual awards to celebrate excellence in contemporary music, which honour the skills of member composers, songwriters, and publishers who have achieved outstanding success in sales and airplay performan ...

category. The judges' comments included: “defies genre, style and expectation”, and mentioned its 20-year history of having “fearlessly championed new Australian work” and "sustained contribution to the local, national and international arts scene”.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Zephyr Quartet Australian string quartets