About
„It’s a wittily mischievous concept, but in many ways also the most despairing of all the music on this brilliantly conceived, profoundly affecting release.”
(The Strad about the album„CRISIS“)
The Kuss Quartet has been setting new standards for many years with its ambitious concept- based programming. Its mission is to offer unique experiences to traditional audiences and new listeners alike.
Leader Jana Kuss and second violinist Oliver Wille have been playing side by side for over 30 years. With great curiosity, they and their long-standing colleagues, William Coleman and Mikayel Hakhnazaryan, seek confirmation of the eternal “muss es sein?” of string quartet playing.
Thanks to a grant from the state of Lower Saxony and Musik 21, the quartet has been able to commission several new works in the last ten years, expanding the string quartet repertoire with compositions by Enno Poppe, Aribert Reimann, Manfred Trojahn, Bruno Mantovani, Iris ter Schiphorst Johannes Fischer and Mark Andre. This has attracted cooperations with the Concertgebouw and Muziekgebouw Amsterdam, Paris Biennale, the Wigmore Hall in London and Tokyo’s Suntory Hall. In the 23/24 season, Francisco Coll’s “Codices” will be premiered in Basel and receive further performances in Amsterdam, Berlin and Hanover.
The Kuss Quartett enjoys regular collaborations with musical partners including Miklós Perényi, Dénes Várjon, Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Sarah Maria-Sun, Maurice Steger and Johannes Fischer.
The most recent album, “KRISE” (Crisis), was released in January 2023 and explores the subject of its title from different perspectives in both well-known quartet repertoire and specially commissioned works. The “KRISE” concert programme can be heard extensively in performance throughout the 23/24 season.
The cross-genre Beethoven programme “Force and Freedom” was developed together with director Nicola Hümpel and her music and dance theatre, “Nico and The Navigators”. Delayed by the pandemic, the world premiere took place in November 2021 at the Konzerthaus Dortmund and was subsequently performed at the Schwetzinger Festspiele and Radialsystem Berlin in 2022. The production was filmed by ARTE TV.
A further highly innovative project was “KUSS@KOKON”. During the Corona pandemic, an artist collective consisting of dancers Yui Kawaguchi and Ruben Reniers, percussionist Johannes Fischer and slam poet Bas Böttcher developed new modular concerts with the Kuss Quartet, assisted by a “Reload” grant from the German Federal Cultural Foundation. Free from inhibitions, the modules break the boundaries of these artistic fields and expand them into new forms.
At the beginning of its career, the quartet was awarded first prizes by the German Music Council and at the Borciani Competition. It also received a Borletti-Buitoni Award and was a “Rising Star” of the European Concert Hall Organisation.
Today, the Kuss Quartet inspires the next generation in frequent master classes. William Coleman and Oliver Wille hold professorships in Salzburg and Hanover/Birmingham respectively, while Mikayel Hakhnazaryan teaches chamber music at the Hochschule in Karlsruhe and Jana Kuss at the Accademia Perosi in Biella (Italy).
Saison 2023 – 2024
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Jana Kuss
William Coleman
Mikayel Hakhnazaryan
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Masterclasses
Mikayel Hakhnazaryan
Cello
Born into a musical family, Mikayel continued his studies after graduation from the State Conservatory in Armenia with Tibor Varga and Marcio Carneiro in Sion and completed them at the Musikakademie Basel with Prof. Ivan Monighetti.
He was deeply inspired by Steven Isserlis, attending his master classes numerous times and calls him his mentor.
During his studies in Switzerland he appeared regularly as a soloist with the Chamber Orchestra Tibor Varga and with the Armenian Philharmonic Orchestra as well as with the National Youth Symphony Orchestra of Armenia. At that time he was a member of the Basel String Quartet and the Zurich String Trio.
Chamber music is the most central element in Mikayel’s career, after being part of the Open Chamber Music Festival of IMS Prussia Cove for years, he played in numerous festivals wordwide.
Mikayel was Guest Principal Cello at the Basque National Orchestra, Lucerne Symphony Orchestra and is regularly invited by Camerata Bern, Camerata Salzburg, Amsterdam Sinfonietta, Kammerorchester Basel, Gstaad Festival Orchestra, Cappella Andrea Barca, among others.
Since 2014 he is Principal Cello of the Munich Chamber Orchestra and regularly guest at the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and their chamber music groups (12 Cellists/ Scharoun Ensemble).
He is giving chamber music masterclasses at the Jeunesses Musicales, Royal Birmingham Conservatory, Suntory Hall Tokyo and other institutions and is teaching at the Academy of Music Karlsruhe.
In the past years Mikayel performed as solist with the Armenian National Youth Symphony Orchestra, Munich Chamber Orchestra and the Georgian Chamber Orchester Ingolstadt.
Mikayel plays on a cello by Andrea Castagneri from 1735.
Jana Kuss
Violin
Die Violinistin Jana Kuss, Primaria des Kuss Quartetts, ist in Ost-Berlin geboren und aufgewachsen und bekam im Alter von 6 Jahren ihren ersten Geigenunterricht.
Ihr Talent wurde in der Spezial-Musikschule Hanns Eisler (dem „Carl-Philipp-Emanuel Bach Gymnasium“) von Prof. Eberhard Feltz gefördert, der ihr Lehrer und auch später langjähriger Mentor des 1991 mit Oliver Wille gegründeten Kuss Quartetts wurde.
Jana Kuss war Stipendiatin der Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes und studierte Violine bei Prof. Adelina Oprean in Basel, bei Prof. Thomas Brandis in Berlin sowie dann gemeinsam mit dem Quartett am New England Conservatory Boston bei Prof. Paul Katz (Cleveland Quartet).
Weitere wichtige Impulsgeber waren Walter Levin und György Kurtág.
Die erfolgreiche Laufbahn des Kuss Quartetts entwickelte sich stetig weiter, als das Ensemble 2002 sowohl den Preis des Deutschen Musikrates als auch den begehrten Quartettpreis „Premio Paolo Borciani“ gewann. Seitdem konzertieren sie auf allen wichtigen nationalen und internationalen Podien der Konzertsäle und Festivals und geben ihre Erfahrung und Wissen immer wieder in Meisterkursen weiter. Jana Kuss’ Duo-Partner ist seit der Saison 2013/14 der Pianist Eric Schneider.
Sie spielt eine Geige von Carlo Ferdinando Landolfi (Mailand 1756).
Oliver Wille
Violin
As Professor of Chamber Music at the University of Music in Hanover, where he supervises an internationally successful quartet class, Oliver Wille and the university’s own institute are pioneers in the field of chamber music education with their creative and innovative projects. Many of the ensembles he has trained are now international prizewinners and can be heard on major stages around the world.
Together with Jana Kuss, the then 14-year-old was one of the founding members of the Kuss Quartet. The ensemble has been playing on all the major concert stages and festivals worldwide since 2002 and has several award-winning CD recordings to its name. Most recently, the four recorded the Beethoven quartet cycle on Paganini’s Stradivaris live in Tokyo’s Suntory Hall. The Kuss Quartet paved the way for new concert formats and concept programs, for example with the Kuss Plus series in Berlin techno clubs. For years, they have regularly commissioned renowned composers.
In addition to a guest professorship for violin and string quartet at the Royal Birmingham Conservatory, the Berlin-born musician is the artistic director of the “Sommerliche Musiktage” Hitzacker and chairman of the project advisory board and the overall jury of the German Music Competition. Oliver Wille is a popular music mediator, regularly hosts discussion concerts, invents concert formats, leads workshops and was artistic director of the chamber music series in Hanover from 2011 to 2020.
He is dedicated to the challenge of leading the renowned Joseph Joachim Violin Competition into the future in his adopted home town together with Antje Weithaas. With many ideas and above all the aim of enabling the next generation of artists to find their way onto the concert stage through new creative networks and collaborations.
William Coleman
Viola
William Coleman studied in Salzburg with Thomas Riebl and in Boston with Kim Kashkashian; concurrently in Budapest with legendary pianist and pedagogue Ferenc Rados. He plays a 1735 Carlo Antonio Testore viola that belonged to legendary violist Lionel Tertis. He is a Pirastro artist and plays Evah Pirazzi Gold strings exclusively.
William Coleman performs regularly as a chamber musician and soloist and is a violist in the renowned Berlin Kuss Quartet. He gave concerts at the Salzburg Festival and the Edinburgh Festival, in the Berlin Philharmonie, in the Vienna Konzerthaus, in London’s Wigmore Hall, in the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, in the Library of Congress in Washington and in New York’s Carnegie Hall. His chamber music partners include Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Yuri Bashmet, Miklos Perenyi, Kim Kashkashian, Boris Pergamenschikov, Leif Ove Andsnes, Till Fellner and Antje Weithaas. He is a regular at the International Musicians’ Seminar Prussia Cove, and in summer 2020 he will take part in the famous Marlboro Festival in Vermont (USA). He gave master classes at the universities of Berlin and Hamburg as well as in the USA, at the Kronberg Academy and at the Suntory Academy Tokyo. In 2020, the complete cycle of Beethoven quartets will be released live from Suntory Hall Tokyo, played on the famous “Paganini Quartet” instruments by Antonio Stradivarius, on loan from the Nippon Music Foundation. In 2018 the quartet won an Opus Klassik prize. In April 2019, Coleman replaced Yuri Bashmet as a jury member at the Tertis International Viola Competition on the Isle of Man. In 2021 he was a jury member of the Tokyo International Viola Competition.
Masterclasses
26.–28.11.2024, Hochschule für Musik Dresden
09.–20.09.2026, Weikersheim (Jeunesses Musicales Chamber Music Campus)