What a lark it’s been – the final day is upon us! Breakfasted to the nines, bright and early thanks to the insane hospitality of our hosts, we made our merry way cross-country to Dunblane Cathedral for our fourth and final concert of the tour. We said our farewells, teary-eyed but raring to go and clamoured in the quartet mobile for the final time.
After sitting In a livestock-induced traffic jams crossing onto the Edinburgh bypass, our spirits lifted and so did the rain. The low din of the A-Road gave way to civilisation and we found ourselves in the cobbled streets of quaint Dunblane. This magnificent gothic twelfth century Cathedral was the perfect end to this concert tour, with an ecclesiastical acoustic and a very appreciative audience. The warmth of the green room kept our toes and fingers from falling off, and our stomachs and minds were full after the most fantastic soup and sandwiches backstage – we are slowly getting used to four meals a day! After a rip-roaring Bartok 4, Mendelssohn and Mozart, our wonderful promoters saw us off to Glasgow airport, with packed (devilish) brownies for the car. What a time we had, and how much we have learnt!
First Prize and Commission Prize winners at the Carl Nielsen International Chamber Music Competition 2023, the Kleio Quartet are quickly establishing themselves as an internationally-recognised quartet.
Described by Alina Ibragimova as "a wonderfully dedicated group of musicians who bring assuredness and freshness to everything they play”, they formed at the Seiji Ozawa International Chamber Academy in 2019 and consist of individually acclaimed musicians Yume Fujise, Katherine Yoon, Jenny Lewisohn and Eliza Millett.
The Kleio Quartet have performed in major international venues such as the Wigmore Hall, Victoria Hall, Cadogan Hall, Royal Festival Hall, the DR Koncerthuset, the Black Diamond in Copenhagen and many others.
The quartet are particularly grateful to have received support and mentorship from Eckart Runge (ex-Artemis Quartet) and Alina Ibragimova (Chiaroscuro Quartet) as well as from John Myerscough (Doric Quartet) thanks to ChamberStudio's Mentorship Scheme. They have also received coaching from world-renowned chamber musicians Sadao Harada, Nobuko Imai, Pamela Frank, Jonathan Brown, Simon Rowland-Jones, György Kurtàg and Oliver Wille.
This season the Kleio Quartet are delighted to be joining the class of Kirill Gerstein at the International Musicians Seminar Prussia Cove and look forward to a series of residencies hosted by the Strijkkwartet Biënnale Amsterdam from 2023-2025 as well as at ProQuartet - Centre Européen de Musique de Chambre for the season 2023/24. They have been selected for the Tunnell Trust’s Music Club Awards Scheme 2022/23, are Kirckman Concert Society Young Artists for 2023/24 and have also been selected to join the MERITA platform from 2023-2025. They also won the Hattori Foundation Senior Award for 2023-24.
The Kleio Quartet are City Music Foundation Artists and are grateful for the ongoing support of Le Dimore del Quartetto.
