biography 

The Goldner String Quartet has long-standing recognition as not only Australia’s pre-eminent string quartet, but as an ensemble of international significance, favourably compared with the best in the world. 2024 will mark the 30th and Final Concert Season of the Goldner String Quartet.

The Quartet is named after Richard Goldner, founder of Musica Viva Australia. Launched in 1995 and still retaining all founding members, the musicians are well known to Australian and international audiences through their performances and recordings and for their concurrent membership of the Australia Ensemble at UNSW. All members have occupied principal positions in organisations such as the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and Australian Chamber Orchestra.

Unanimous audience and critical acclaim following their London debut at Wigmore Hall in 1997 ensured the Goldner Quartet’s invitations to prestigious UK and European festivals. Performances in the USA and throughout Asia have followed, in addition to several tours of New Zealand.

The Goldners’ most recent tour saw performances in the UK, including the Wigmore Hall (broadcast by the BBC) with long term collaborator, pianist Piers Lane. The Quartet also appeared in Ireland and in Italy for the opening of the 2019 Biennale Arte in Venice.

The Quartet has regularly toured nationally for Musica Viva as part of their International Concert Series and has appeared at many of Australia’s leading music festivals including Musica Viva’s Sydney Festival, Music in the Hunter, and at Huntington Estate amongst many others, in addition to being Quartet-in-Residence at the annual Australian Festival of Chamber Music, in Townsville, North Queensland.

Special projects have included a major 20th-Century retrospective, and the complete Beethoven String Quartet Cycle. The Quartet’s appearances in the 2011 City of London Festival drew capacity audiences and unanimous praise from UK critics, and were broadcast on the BBC. Other Goldner projects have included a DVD documentary entitled The Quartets, recorded live with renowned Australian composer Peter Sculthorpe in 2012 (released by ABC Classics), and an international project in celebration of Sydney’s Sister Cities.

The Goldner’s live recordings of the complete Beethoven String Quartet cycle released on ABC Classics, won the 2009 Limelight Award for Best Classical Recording. The Quartet has numerous recordings for the prestigious UK label, Hyperion; each disc highlights string quartets and piano quintets of a different composer (Bloch, Bridge, Dvořák, Elgar, Harty, Taneyev, Arensky, Vierne, Pierné, Bruch, Borodin, Dunhill, D’Erlanger, Korngold and Bartok to date) with pianist Piers Lane. Universal rave reviews have followed, including Diapason D’Or, Editor’s Choice in Gramophone magazine and BBC Music Magazine, as well as finalist for the BBC Music Magazine’s Chamber Music Award.

Also released are the complete quartets of Szymanowski and Stravinsky on Naxos, and the complete quartets of Carl Vine on ABC Classics. The Goldners had a close working relationship with Peter Sculthorpe; 3 volumes of his Quartets are recorded on the Tall Poppies label. Both the Vine and Sculthorpe collections were recorded in the presence of the composer.

Strongly committed to teaching the next generation of string quartets, the Goldners have mentored young ensembles through programs of the Australian Youth Orchestra, Musica Viva Australia, the Australian National Academy of Music, the Sydney Conservatorium, and AFCM Townsville.

New works have been regularly commissioned for the Goldners from many of Australia’s leading composers.