The Edinburgh Quartet, founded in 1960, has long been celebrated as one of Britain’s foremost chamber ensembles, appearing regularly at prestigious venues across the UK and touring extensively across Europe, the Far and Middle East, and North and South America.

In addition to a busy concert schedule the Edinburgh Quartet is frequently featured in radio broadcasts for the BBC and other stations. Recently this has included live appearances on Classics Unwrapped (BBC Radio Scotland) and Jazz Line-Up and In Tune (BBC Radio 3) as well as video recordings for Studio One Sessions, which appear on the BBC Radio Scotland website.

The Edinburgh Quartet is committed to nurturing talent and has been resident at the University of Stirling, University of Glasgow, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, and University of Edinburgh. As well as performing a concert series at each of these institutions, the players regularly work with composition students, instrumentalists, and professors. The Edinburgh Quartet’s outreach programme encompasses workshops for primary and secondary school children, tutoring adults on the Variations Summer Course in Ullapool, and their innovative Apprentice programme for students at UK conservatoires.

The Quartet has always been a champion of new music and has worked with many important and prolific composers of our age including James MacMillan, Michael Tippett and Howard Blake, and they regularly commission, perform, and record new works.

The Edinburgh Quartet has an extensive discography available on various labels such as Delphian, Linn, Meridian and RCA.  Among their many recordings are the complete string quartets of Hans Gál (Meridian), Kenneth Leighton (Meridian) and Mátyás Seiber (Delphian), as well as discs of Bartók, Robert Crawford, Haydn, Schubert and Thomas Wilson. Their recordings regularly feature in UK and foreign press and have received widespread critical acclaim.

“perky and pristine in the Haydn, gutsy and attitudinal in the folk-inspired Prokofiev, movingly sustained in the grim delights of the Shostakovich… richly considered, rigorously balanced and, ultimately, a musical treat”. (The Scotsman)

“absolutely essential listening” (The Herald)

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