Naaman Sluchin, violin 1 & 2
Yun-Peng Zhao, violin 1 & 2
Franck Chevalier, viola
Pierre Morlet, violoncello

“One of the five quartets you should know about” – Gramophone

QUATUOR DIOTIMA, founded by graduates of the Paris and Lyon Conservatoires, was awarded first prize at the FNAPEC Competition, Paris in 1999, and the Contemporary Music Prize at the London String Quartet Competition in 2000, in which year, at the invitation of ProQuartet, they began a two-year residency at the Centre Européen de Musique de Chambre, Fontainebleau.

The Quartet’s name pays tribute to Luigi Nono’s work Fragmente Stille, an Diotima, affirming their strong commitment to the music of our time, which they seek to present, whenever possible, within the context of the more traditional Classical and Romantic string quartet repertoire.

From the outset Diotima were performing internationally; they have appeared at many of the major concert venues and music festivals across Europe including L’Auditorium du Louvre, Cité de la Musique, Berlin Philharmonie, Konzerthaus Berlin, Musica Strasbourg, Ars Musica Brussels, Musica Nova Helsinki, Archipel Geneva, Gulbenkian Foundation Lisbon, Huddersfield Festival, Budapest Autumn Festival, Stockholm New Music, CDMC Madrid, and Centre Acanthes Metz. Concert tours have taken them further afield, to Japan, USA, Central and South America, to which they add Mexico and China/Korea this season.
During the autumn of 2007 Diotima completed their four-concert residency at the Casa da Música, Porto – a panorama of music from the 18th century to the present day. The 2007/08 season also included appearances at Festival d’Ile de France, Settembre Musica Torino/Milano, Festival ECLAT Stuttgart, Queen’s Hall Edinburgh and City Halls Glasgow, Opéra Bastille Paris, SaarlandischerRadio, and Festival d’Aix-en-Provence.

In 2004 Diotima participated in the first performances of Birtwistle’s The Io Passion in Aldeburgh and Bregenz and on tour in the United Kingdom. Bringing new works to life is an integral part of Diotima’s work and they have given première performances of new quartets by Pauset, Dillon, Kyburz, Durand, Lévinas, Mochizuki, Durieux and Posadas.

Their first major CD, Lachenmann’s Reigen seliger Geister coupled with Nono’s Fragmente-Stille, an Diotima (ASSAI 222 492) received a ‘Coup de coeur’ from the Académie Charles Cros and a ‘Diapason découverte’. In 2004 they received the prize for ‘Jeunes talents’ at the ceremony of the ‘Diapason d’or de l’année’ in Paris. Recent recording projects include the quartets of Janácek (which received the French award, Diapson d’or and the little known quartets of Lucien Durosoir (1878–1955), as well as Schoenberg’s highly virtuosic concerto for string quartet and orchestra. They received two addition Diapson d’Or awards for their recording of the quartets of Geroge Onslow (Naïve) and the  Alberto Posadas quartet cycle (Kairos).

Website: quatuordiotima.fr

Radio France Bartok Quartet no. 6:

“Very impressive, the Diotima Quartet not only reaches a superb technical level with well defined voices, but at the same time offers resolutely expressive and dramatic playing, supple and unpredictable – fearless in communicating the contrast between nobility and desolation in the successive Mestos on one hand and the grotesque approaching terror in the central episodes (Marcia, Burletta), on the other.”

—Simon Corley, Le Figaro

Festival Musica in Strasbourg: On Diotima Quartet's performance of Liturgia Fractal, a cycle of 5 quartets by Alberto Posadas:

“This first complete performance of the work was, in my opinion, the major event at Musica 2008 and one of the summits of contemporary chamber music… With their accuracy and beauty of sound, and because they concentrateon onlya fewbig projectsper season, Diotima were able to do complete justice to this intimidating masterpiece.”

—Harry Halbreich, Crescendo (Belgium)

“Liturgia Fractal, says the composer, is a liturgy of nature. The listener was treated on the occasion to a performance of hypervirtuosity of the Diotima Quartet – playing with a cohesion and homogeneity beyond perfection : they left the audience totally flabbergasted.”

—Marc Munch, Derniere Nouvelle ’Alace

Eclat Festival, Stuttgart

(Jonathan Harvey’s fourth quartet and Schnebel’s first quartet) “comprised the closing concert of the Eclat Festival of New Music in Stuttgart – excellently played by Quatuor Diotima. The French ensemble, equally familiar with tradition as well as cutting edge, convinced through commanding precision, colorful profusion and lucid differentiation. In addition, there was an intensity of aural qualities that preserved the aura of finest quartet playing all the way into Harvey’s surround sounds.”

—Martin Mezger, Esslinger Zeitung

“…string quartets which were delivered with the highest virtuosity by Quatuor Diotima.”

—Dietholf Zerweck, Ludwigsburger Kreiszeitung

(Schnebel’s quartet) “With extrovert brilliance, Quatuor Diotima turned it into a gripping journey.”

—Otto Paul Burkhardt, Sudwestpresse

“Quatuor Diotima…mastered these enormous tasks with extraordinary stamina and musicianship.”

—Dieter Lohr, Schwabische Zeitung

“Thanks be to the Parisian Quatuor Diotima for a magnificent rendering of Schnebel’s “firstborn” as well as for its very intensive interpretation of Johathan Harvey’s quartet.”

—Gerhard Rohde, Neuemusikzeitung

Concerts Mi-Temps Classic, Châteauroux

“The Diotima quartet meets Janacek : a remarkable young French ensemble already well known for its interpretations 20th century music (Viennese School, Ligeti, Nono, Lachenmann), the Diotima comprisesNaaman Sluchin et Yun-Peng Zhao (violins), Franck Chevalier (viola) and Pierre Morlet (cello). Their interpretation of the First Quartet, passionate but also breathing a clam internal balance, underlines the extreme position taken by Janacek in comparison with the music of his time. In the Second Quartet, equally dense and fiery, Quatuor Diotima gives full expression to the gradual metamorphosis of the thematic and rhythmic ideas. The serious, lyrical, consistent approach, the radiance of the sound and the passion shown throughout, are a revelation.”

—Patrick Szersnovicz, Le Monde de la Musique

La Maison Française, Washington DC, On Berg’s Lyric Suite:

“The tangle of competing melodies was unwoven with great skill, giving contrapuntal clarity to the individual lines. Percussive, almost hollow sounds alternated with glassy runs that shattered into shards. The rich sweep of Berg’s lush sound can sound like a neo-tonal film score, and here it did. On Janacek’s Second Quartet: Its extended but still mostly traditional harmony contrasts with the modernistic colours, like many sul ponticello passages, rendered with dry energy by cellist Pierre Morlet. Violist Franck Chevalier brought a strong sound to the many solos […] entrusted to his instrument.”

—Charles T. Downey, Ionarts.org

Janacek Quartet no. 1/ Hotel des Invalides, Paris

“Diotima give an atypical interpretation, superbly detailed and aided by an impeccable instrumental quality. More thoughtful than instinctive, their vision of a remarkable sometimes languorous fluidity, without constraints, opens up new and unforeseen perspectives.”

—Simon Corley, ConcertoNet.com

Lucien Durosoir: String Quartets

“The Diotima Quartet, who take their name from a piece by Luigi Nono (Fragmente-Stille, an Diotima), specialize particularly in contemporary music. It is probably this that lies behind their incisive rhythmic precision, while their remarkable care over tonal quality is more than simply self-indulgence. What results is an unexpected and major revelation.”

—Jacques Bonnaure, Classica-Repertoire

Opening concert in Viitasaari Church

“The French Quartet Diotima performed Toshio Hosokawa’s Silent Flowers with progressing mystery. This piece require different and deeper concentration than the ones heard previously (by Ensemble Aleph). Quatuor Diotima did delicate work and impressed with rhythmic coordination. A wider thematic was constantly present in the background, erupting unexpectedly from time to time. Also Beeth ven’s Grosse Fuge op. 133 was brought out with clarity, in which the classical elements were boldly asserted.”

—Jarmo Valkola, Keskisuomalainen (Finland)

Janacek String Quartets

“Playing with perfect cohesion, Diotima, superbly expert painters of these interior worlds, trace each one of Janacek’s testament-journeys, charged as they are with personal references and memories…an irresistible performance.”

—Ernst van Bek, ClassiquNews.com

Durosoir CD

“…and this CD is quite literally breathtaking. Durosoir’s music has a sever sonority as a result of the way in which he manipulates his musical material, and the demands of co-ordinationand cohesion which it inflicts on the indivisual players – cahallenges which Quatuor Diotima are more than equal to.”

—Christophe Huss, Classics Today, France (awarded the month’s 10/10 award)

Stanford University, USA

“If ticket sales matched technical ability and emotional impact, they would have been playing at Herbst to a sold-out hall. […] the program was united by the extreme difficulties the pieces present to any ensemble and the confident flair with which the Quatuor Diotima overcame them. With luck, there will be more opportunities in the future to hear such groups in the Bay area.”

—Aaron Einbond, San Francisco Classical Voice

Huddersfield Festival 2005

“At Quatuor Diotima’s concert in homage to Helmut Lachenmann […] the audience were perfectly still, you could feel them listening. A masterpiece [Reigen seliger Geister] performed by master interpreters.”

—The Huddersfield Daily Examiner

Berlin Festival 2004 / Debussy and Hanspeter Kyburz première

“The French Quatuor Diotima was the ideal ensemble for this music: extremely agile, with a soft and supple sound, yet without ever being imprecise, always making the most of the enchanting tonal beauty of the piece, which Debussy completed in 1893. As its name suggests, the ensemble has worked with Walter Levin, the former leader of the LaSalle Quartet, who helped foster a new blossoming of quartet culture in the German speaking world (the LaSalle Quartet premiered Luigi Nono’s Fragmente - Stille, an Diotima). But it is precisely in listening to the Debussy, that one realizes how new music can also profit when musicians master the older repertoire. We hope to hear them again in Berlin soon.”

—Werner Friedrich, Klassik-in-Berlin.de

Huddersfield Festival

“The two events involving the Diotima String Quartet were among the highlights of the 2004 Huddersfield Festival. Together, with Alan Hacker, basset clarinet, they carried much of the burden of Harrison Birtwistle’s The Io Passion. […] The Diotima Quartet’s other contribution was a recital in which they focussed on repertoire usually linked with the Arditti Quartet. They demonstrated the same technical prowess, and a similar commitment to a modernist outlook. […] the performance of Luigi Nono’s Fragmente-Stille, an Diotima achieved the degree of concentration demanded by the composer.”

—John Warnaby, Seen and Heard

Châteauroux

“The Diotima Quartet was magnificent in Death and the Maiden of Franz Schubert and in Bartok’s Quartet no. 6. Two violins, a viola and a cello, here full of ardor with almost transparent sound deeply touching the listener.”

—La Nouvelle République

Agora Festival Paris

“The Diotima Quartet offered a very beautiful concert, demonstrating one more time its remarkable cohesion, its technical mastery and, as witnessed by the state of the bows at the end of the Quartet no. 2 of Ferneyhough, its physical engagement.”

—Diapason

Feldman Clarinet and String Quartet CD [MODE]

“The wonderful tenderness of the musicians is responsible for this joy…the clarinetist…Carol Robinson and this Diotima Quartet, sensitive and fragile in its precision which we were recently able to appreciate in the interpretation of the subtle quartet Strada non presa of Stefano Gervasoni in the Musica Festival.”

—Jean Vermeil, Répertoire

Contemporary programs

Frederic Durieux ...Here, not there...a tribute to Barnett Newman (with electronics)
Ashley Ross Fure new work (commissioned by FACE ) (Harvard post graduate studying at IRCAM)
Roger Reynolds ELLIOTT
To be decided

Reynolds ELLIOTT
Carter Quartet No.5
Durieux ...Here, not there... a tribute to Barnett Newman (with electronics)
Debussy Quartet Op.10 / 25’ (or Ravel)

Czernowin Anea crystal: Seed I and Seed II
Fure new work
Dillon Quartet No.6
Reynolds ELLIOTT
Carter Quartet No.5

Classical program

George Onslow (French 1784-1853) String Quartet Op.56
   or Arriaga, Schubert (early)
Barber Quartet Op.11
Debussy Quartet Op.10
   or Ravel or Berg Lyric Suite

Mixed program

George Onslow (French 1784-1853) String Quartet Op.56
   or Arriaga, Schubert)
Carter Quartet No.5
Debussy Quartet Op.10    or Ravel

Roger Reynolds ELLIOTT (2008)
Berg Lyric Suite
Debussy Quartet Op.10

James Dillon Quartet No.6 (première in Oct. 2010)
Debussy Quartet Op.10
Berg Lyric Suite

Reynolds ELLIOTT (2008)
Carter Quartet No.5
Durieux ...Here, not there... a tribute to Barnett Newman (with electronics) (2009)
Debussy Quartet Op.10