Quatuor Ébène

Pierre Colombet, violin | Gabriel Le Magadure, violin | Marie Chilemme, viola | Yuya Okamoto, cello

Each season, Chamber Music Cincinnati presents one of the five ensembles remaining active from the BBC-named “Ten Greatest String Quartet Ensembles of All Time.” This season, it is Quatuor Ébène’s Cincinnati debut, celebrating 25 years of performing.

Quatuor Ébène was founded at France’s Boulogne-Billancourt Conservatory in 1999. After studies with the Quatuor Ysaÿe, Gábor Takács, Eberhard Feltz, and György Kurtág, the Ébène’s unprecedented success at Germany’s 2004 ARD Music Competition marked the start of their rise to fame. Quatuor Ébène’s recordings have received numerous awards, including four Gramophone Awards, a BBC Music Magazine Award, and the Midem Classical Award. Together with Antoine Tamestit, their recording of Mozart’s Quintets K. 515 and K. 516 was Gramophone’s Recording of the Month. Their album of Debussy, Ravel, and Fauré quartets was Gramophone’s Recording of the Year. 

Foremost among these recordings are Beethoven’s 16 string quartets, recorded on six continents between May 2019 and January 2020. Following their 20th stage anniversary, Quatuor Ébène crowned this achievement by performing the complete Beethoven cycle in venues such as Carnegie Hall, Philharmonie de Paris, Alte Oper Frankfurt, the Vienna Konzerthaus, and Switzerland’s Verbier Festival.