Biography

Kate Oswin and Alicia Berendse – violin

Ana Teresa de Braga e Alves – viola

Ghislaine McMullin – violoncello

The Behn Quartet is formed of players from England, the Netherlands, Portugal, and New Zealand. Winners of the Orlando International Chamber Music Competition, they are currently an Associate Ensemble at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, and previously held the CAVATINA Chamber Music Fellowship at the Royal Academy of Music in London. They take their name from Aphra Behn, the seventeenth-century playwright, political activist, and philanthropist of the arts.

Since their formation in 2015 the Behn Quartet have given recitals around Europe, including at Wigmore Hall, the Concertgebouw, the West Cork Chamber Music Festival, String Quartet Biennale Amsterdam, and at the Fondazione Cini Venice in association with Le Dimore del Quartetto. They gave the world premiere of Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’ final work at his Memorial Concert in St John’s Smith Square and live on BBC Radio 3, and have recorded chamber works by Maxwell Davies, Stravinsky and Birtwistle for Linn Records. They were finalists in the Royal Overseas League Chamber Music Competition, and gave a highly acclaimed tour as 2018 Encompass Artists with Chamber Music New Zealand, reviewed in the New Zealand Herald as ‘a performance that left the audience silently spellbound for several seconds before bursting into enthusiastic applause, recognising the magic cast throughout the auditorium by this talented quartet.’ The Behn Quartet were also part of the official 40th Anniversary celebrations of Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen, performing a specially-commissioned ‘reimagination’ of the iconic song featured in news outlets worldwide.

The Behn Quartet are currently mentored by Oliver Wille, having previously studied with Christoph Richter and David Waterman on the ChamberStudio masterclass scheme at Kings Place London. Future engagements include recitals for the Royal Birmingham Conservatorie, Kamermuziek aan de Berkel, and in Moscow by invitation of the Rus Quartet.

The Behn Quartet are generously supported by Help Musicians UK, the De Lancey & De La Hanty Foundation, and the CAVATINA Chamber Music Trust. The Quartet plays instruments and bows kindly on loan by the Harrison Frank Foundation and Hurwitz Fine Instruments.

“All women together ought to let flowers fall upon the tomb of Aphra Behn which is, most scandalously but rather appropriately, in Westminster Abbey, for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds.”

– Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own

Musicians’ Company Award: Maisie Lewis Prize 2017

Page Updated: June 2019