The Quartet
JOANNA LEWIS Violine
ANNE HARVEY-NAGL Violine
LENA FANKHAUSER Viola
MELISSA COLEMAN Violoncello
The Koehne Quartet founded in 1987 by Joanna Lewis, counts as one of today’s outstanding interpreters of contemporary music in continental Europe. The quartet’s list of repertoire is now expansive, ranging from classical quartet repertoire through to the 21st century. Since its formation the quartet has encouraged and enjoyed building up an intense working relationship with the composers whose compositions they perform, aiming for authentic and original interpretations.
What began with the string quartets of Graeme Koehne – one of Australia’s most renowned, diverse and versatile composers – consequently lead to Austrian Contemporaries such as Friedrich Cerha, Kurt Schwertsik, Francis Burt, Thomas Pernes, Gerd Kühr, Thomas Larcher and Wolfgang Liebhart. The quartet’s method of working, breaking new ground together with the composers, was also strongly influenced by attending master classes with Günter Pichler (Alban Berg Quartet), the Amadeus and the Brodsky Quartet, with Hatto Beyerle and György Kurtág.
The Koehne Quartet also works regularly with international jazz musicians such as Dave Liebman, Wayne Horvitz, Peter Herbert, Anthony Braxton, Georg Graewe, Max Nagl and Otto Lechner, and with world musicians Marcel Khalife, Marwan Abado and Dhafer Youssef.
Apart from impeccable sound quality and flawless intonation, it is above all the personal creative input, that the ensemble, as a collective of four, strong musical personalities, allows to appear. The possibility of blending into complete unity and in the next instant to individually dissolve apart again, is a particular trademark of the musicians of the Koehne Quartet.