Quatuor Byron

The Quatuor Byron is one of Switzerland's top chamber ensembles. The group has a strong educational role; having benefited from top-notch master classes in its early years, it has organized numerous classes in turn. The Quatuor Byron was formed in the late 2000s decade at the Haute École de Musique in Geneva, where the four members were students of violinist-educator Gábor Takács-Nagy; it was Nagy who brought them together. The group, which sometimes uses the name Byron Quartet in English-speaking contexts, is named for poet Lord Byron, whom the members call the first great modern European. Violinists Wendy Ghysels (now Wendy Ghysels James) and François James, violist Robin Lemmel, and cellist Coralie Devars continue to make up the quartet's membership in the early 2020s. The group members came from various European countries, and they all have flourishing individual careers. The Quatuor Byron earned a string quartet master diploma from the Haute École de Musique in 2010, also studying with the Ysaÿe Quartet at the Conservatoire National de Région de Paris from 2006 to 2008. The group continued its studies at the ProQuartet Center for Chamber Music Studies in Paris and had master classes with members of the Berg, Hagen, Cleveland, and Belcea Quartets, as well as with violinist Eberhard Feltz and composer György Kurtág. In 2011, the quartet released its debut recording of Shostakovich's String Quartets Nos. 8 and 9 on the Aparte label. The Quatuor Byron has appeared widely in Western continental Europe and in Britain, performing at such venues as the Salle Paderewski in Lausanne, Switzerland, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, and the Tonhalle in Zurich. The group is active at festivals, including the Guildhall Ensemble Festival of London and the Promenades Musicales de Fontainebleau in Bellerive, Switzerland, and it is often heard on both the French and German-Swiss radio networks, as well as on radio in Belgium and France. The Quatuor Byron returned to recording on Aparte with the album Souvenir d'Espagne: Turina, Castelnuovo-Tedesco in 2023.
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