Eusebius Quartet

The Eusebius Quartet has appeared at major festivals and garnered several important prizes and career development grants. The group released its debut album, featuring music by Erich Wolfgang Korngold, in 2021. The Eusebius Quartet (the group has also used the name Eusebius String Quartet) was founded in 2016. The group members come from Britain (violinists Beatrice Philips and Venetia Jollands) and the U.S. (violist Hannah Shaw and cellist Hannah Sloane). The four musicians knew each other as teenagers but pursued various educational and professional opportunities; Jollands worked as a session musician for such pop and rock stars as Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood, and Boy George. They reunited at Britain's Prussia Cove International Musicians Seminar and stayed in touch, launching the quartet after they had all graduated from music school. The group took the name Eusebius from one of the fictional characters, Florestan and Eusebius, that Robert Schumann used to describe his musical moods. In 2018, the Eusebius Quartet advanced to the finals at the Royal Over-Seas League Music Competition. In 2019, the group was resident at the Britten-Pears Young Artist Programme at the Snape Maltings arts complex; there, the members worked with pianist and teacher Rita Wagner, studying quartets of Schumann and Bartók, and performing at the Aldeburgh Festival at the residency's conclusion. The Eusebius Quartet has performed in Britain at Kings Place, the Glyndebourne Opera House, and the Lewes Festival, of which Philips is founder and artistic director. The group has performed in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and has appeared around continental Europe. Its collaborators are a distinguished group that includes pianists Alasdair Beatson and Bengt Forsberg, clarinetists Matt Hunt and Michael Collins, oboist Daniel Bates, bassoonist Amy Harman, and tenor Nicky Spence. Signed to the Somm label, the Eusebius Quartet, with Beatson, released its debut recording, Chamber Music by Erich Wolfgang Korngold, in 2021.
© James Manheim /TiVo