Carnegie Hall

The Danish String Quartet celebrates its 20th anniversary in the 2022–2023 season, and the Grammy-nominated ensemble continues to assert its preeminence among the world’s finest string quartets. Formed when the musicians were in their teens, the quartet is renowned for impeccable musicianship, sophisticated artistry, exquisite clarity of ensemble, and above all, an unmatched ability to play as one.

This season, the Danish String Quartet continues its Doppelgänger series, which pairs world premieres from four renowned composers—Bent Sørensen, Lotta Wennäkoski, Anna Thorvaldsdottir, and Thomas Adès—with late major chamber works by Schubert. The quartet performs 28 concerts in North America this season over the course of three separate tours, and is artist-in-residence at London’s Wigmore Hall.

The Danish String Quartet’s most recent recording project is PRISM, a series of five discs on ECM New Series that explores the symbiotic musical and contextual relationships between J. S. Bach fugues, Beethoven string quartets, and works by Shostakovich, Schnittke, Bartók, Mendelssohn, and Webern. The ensemble released two discs of traditional Scandinavian folk music, Wood Works (Dacapo, 2014) and Last Leaf (ECM, 2012), which was named one of the top classical albums of the year by NPR, Spotify, and The New York Times. A third folk recording is planned for release later this year on ECM.

The quartet members reach new audiences through special projects. In 2007, they established the DSQ Festival, which takes place in intimate and informal settings in Copenhagen. In 2016, they inaugurated a concert series, Series of Four, in which they perform and invite colleagues to appear.

The Danish String Quartet is the recipient of many awards and prestigious appointments, including Musical America’s 2020 Ensemble of the Year and a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award. In 2013, the quartet was named a BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist and appointed to The Bowers Program at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. The quartet was awarded the 2010 NORDMETALL Ensemble Prize at the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival in Germany, and in 2011, it received the Carl Nielsen Prize, the highest cultural honor in Denmark.

Violinists Frederik Øland and Rune Tonsgaard Sørenson and violist Asbjørn Nørgaard met as children at a music summer camp where they played soccer and made music together. As teenagers, they began studying classical chamber music and were mentored by Tim Frederiksen of Copenhagen’s Royal Danish Academy of Music. In 2008, the three Danes were joined by Norwegian cellist Fredrik Schøyen Sjölin.