AIGHETTA QUARTETT

François SZONYI – Alexandre DEL FA – Philippe LOLI –Olivier FAUTRAT

The Aïghetta Quartet was formed in 1979 in Monte Carlo. It was first heard in public in 1980, but its career as an international ensemble may be said to have been launched with its performance of the Concerto Andalou by Joaquin Rodrigo, with the Philharmonic Orchestra of Monte Carlo in 1982. Tours of France, England, Italy, Hungary and German Federal Republic have followed, as well as numerous television and radio broadcasts. The appeal has not been one of a sheer novelty -the song of a four-headed bird- but rather of the recognition of a new and compelling sound”. This is the way Anthony Burgess presented Aïghetta Quartet when, in 1987, their first record was released. Since then the Aïghetta Quartet has recorded several CDs among which a homage to Bill Evans with the Jazz guitarist John McLaughlin (Time Remembered), the works for guitar quartet by Anthony Burgess and an album dedicated to their own compositions: “Acoustic world”.

Encouraged to its debuts by artists such as Henryk Szeryng, György Cziffra and Riccardo Chailly, Aïghetta Quartet arouses for more than thirty years the enthusiasm of the most varied publics, those the most prestigious concert halls: La Fenice in Venice, the Palau de la Musica Catalana in Barcelona, the Salle Garnier in Monte Carlo, the National Gallery in Budapest, the Gasteig and the Musikhochschule in Münich, the Brücknerhaus in Linz, the Wigmore Hall in London, the Théatre Antique in Arles the Théatre Dejaset in Paris, the Mirabell Castle in Salzburg, the Teatro Ghione in Rome, etc…, as well as the regular customers of the alternative theaters such as the Theaterhaus in Stuttgart, the Kleintheater in Luzern, the Pantheon Theater in Bonn, etc… They have been the guest of numerous musical seasons C’est pas classique in Nice, the Musicales Internationales Guil-Durance, the Automne musical in Chatellerault, the Nancyphonies in Nancy, the Festival de musique de chambre in Briançon, the Musiques en Utopia in Amiens, Les Heures musicales de Binic (France) , Brianza Classica and Festival Internazionale di Musica da Camera in Genova, Emilia Romagna Festival, , Musica Da Camera Promusica di Pistoia, Mantova Musica (Italy), Klassieke Muziek in Limburg (Belgium), Ohrid Summer festival (Macedoine), Festival of Ljubjana (Slovenia) those from the Société des concerts in Fribourg, Lugano/Swiss, from Krems,, Masterkonzert St Polten Austria, Milano, Lecco, Treviso, Parma, Modena/Italy, Valencia/Spain, etc…), and of international guitar festivals (Andres Segovia International Festival in Linares, Barcelone Guitar Festival, the Festival Guitarras de hoy in Murcia(Spain), Festival Guitarras de Lagoa (Portugal), the International Festival in Paris, Guitares en Picardie /France, the Bath International Guitar Festival/England, the Printemps de la guitare de Charleroi, Brussels International Guitar Festival/Belgium, those from Rieti, l’Aquila, Rome/Italy, the Gitarrentage from Neuötting and the International Guitar Symposium from Iserlohn, Gitarrenfestival from Hersbruck /Germany. They have obtained the ” Golden Soafa 87″ for the best musical show of the year in Dorfen in Germany.

The international press worldwide has kept greeting them as a first rank chamber music group:
-“balance of voices – even with one’s eyes closed it is impossible to tell who, among the four, is leading the game – beauty of the tones and purity of solos – it sounds as if each of them has his own playing, touch, phrasing, they are four in one – at last the group dynamics – from the unerring accuracy of the first strike on to the tutti when those four devils of musicians break into a pandemonium as if there were forty of them”. (Y. H.)

– Virtuose and intimate, the aighetta quartet mixes shimmering tones … poetry comes out of the mutual listening, the remarkable sensitivty of this  harmonious whole.- la Liberté de Fribourg / march 2009

-” four virtuosi of very great worth, heirs to the school of Segovia, four individual personalities endowed with a fabulous collective spirit, who declared war on the guitar’s natural frontiers ”
K. Bennert, Süddeutsche Zeitung (Feuilleton) – Gasteig / Münich / Avril 1989 “

-“Aïghetta means little running water. As their machinery was on the whole well oiled there was an evidence of a stable emulsion.” (John W. Duarte)

The quartet has worked with musicians and composers coming from very different worlds (numerous first productions, among them two concerti with orchestra); they have moved on to jazz music field in a way where improvisation and arrangements are closely associated; more recently they produced their own compositions, as a kind of synthesis of new musical trends. This eclecticism, allied to a research for the excellence, makes of these four ” world musicians ” one of the most innovative whole current scene both in soloist and with orchestra.

“Since the release of Time remembered, ten years ago, I have always dreamed of having means to record some of my prefered standards with the same music group. For me, this five guitars group with an additional bass guitar is the absolute complement, perfect for my orchestral composition. I thank the guitarists of the Aighetta Quartet and the bass guitarist Helmut Hell Schartmueller, for their outstanding contribution.” (John McLaughlin)